A Study of the economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of
Capitalism in Decay

by R. PALME DUTT

"We say to the workers: 'You will have to go through fifteen, twenty, fifty years
of civil wars and international wars, not only in order to change existing conditions, but
also in order to change yourselves and fit yourselves for the exercise of political
power."'

MARX (On the Communist Trial at Cologne, 1851).

"The bourgeoisie sees in Bolshevism only one side . . . insurrection, violence,
terror; it endeavors, therefore, to prepare itself especially for resistance and
opposition in that direction alone. It is possible that in single cases, in single
countries, for more or less short periods, they will succeed. We must reckon with such a
possibility, and there is absolutely nothing dreadful to us in the fact that the
bourgeoisie might succeed in this. Communism 'springs up' from Positively all sides of
social life, its sprouts are everywhere, without exception-the 'contagion' (to use the
favourite and 'pleasantest' comparison of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois police) has
very thoroughly penetrated into the organism and has totally impregnated it. If one of the
'vents' were to be stopped up with special care, 'contagion' would find another, sometimes
most unexpected. Life will assert itself. Let the bourgeoisie rave, let it work itself
into a frenzy, commit stupidities, take vengeance in advance on the Bolsheviks, and
endeavour to exterminate in India, Hungary, Germany, etc., more hundreds, thousands, and
hundreds of thousands of the Bolsheviks of yesterday or those of to-morrow. Acting thus,
the bourgeoisie acts as did all classes condemned to death by history. The Communists must
know that the future at any rate is theirs; therefore we can and must unite the intensest
passion in the great revolutionary struggle with the coolest and soberest calculations of
the mad ravings of the bourgeoisie.... In all cases and in all countries Communism grows;
its roots are so deep that persecution neither weakens, nor debilitates, but rather
strengthens it,"

"We say to the workers: 'You will have to go through fifteen, twenty, fifty years
of civil wars and international wars, not only in order to change existing conditions, but
also in order to change yourselves and fit yourselves for the exercise of political
power."'

MARX (On the Communist Trial at Cologne, 1851).

"The bourgeoisie sees in Bolshevism only one side . . . insurrection, violence,
terror; it endeavors, therefore, to prepare itself especially for resistance and
opposition in that direction alone. It is possible that in single cases, in single
countries, for more or less short periods, they will succeed. We must reckon with such a
possibility, and there is absolutely nothing dreadful to us in the fact that the
bourgeoisie might succeed in this. Communism 'springs up' from Positively all sides of
social life, its sprouts are everywhere, without exception-the 'contagion' (to use the
favourite and 'pleasantest' comparison of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois police) has
very thoroughly penetrated into the organism and has totally impregnated it. If one of the
'vents' were to be stopped up with special care, 'contagion' would find another, sometimes
most unexpected. Life will assert itself. Let the bourgeoisie rave, let it work itself
into a frenzy, commit stupidities, take vengeance in advance on the Bolsheviks, and
endeavour to exterminate in India, Hungary, Germany, etc., more hundreds, thousands, and
hundreds of thousands of the Bolsheviks of yesterday or those of to-morrow. Acting thus,
the bourgeoisie acts as did all classes condemned to death by history. The Communists must
know that the future at any rate is theirs; therefore we can and must unite the intensest
passion in the great revolutionary struggle with the coolest and soberest calculations of
the mad ravings of the bourgeoisie.... In all cases and in all countries Communism grows;
its roots are so deep that persecution neither weakens, nor debilitates, but rather
strengthens it,"

THE issue of a second edition of this book provides the opportunity for a short note on
the development of Fascism and Anti- Fascism in the six months since May 1934.

The outstanding development in the world of Fascism during this period has been the
signs of the first stages of a gathering crisis of Fascism-most sharply expressed in the
events of June 30 in Germany, but also reflected in the desperate murder-coup fiasco
against Dollfuss on July 25, in the extreme GermanItalian war-tension, and in the Arpinati
episode in Italy, and still further reflected (in the countries not yet conquered by
Fascism) in the setback to the Fascist advance in France during the months immediately
succeeding the February offensive, in the setback to Mosley in Britain as shown by Olympia
and Hyde Park and by the formal disassociation of Rothermere from Mosley, and in the
strength of the Spanish workers' resistance to Fascism. While it would be a mistake to
exaggerate the significance of particular events and fluctuations in a long-drawn and
profound world-conflict, it is evident that there has been during this period an increase
in the inner contradictions and difficulties of  Fascism and an awakening and
gathering of the mass forces of resistance to Fascism.

The central point of this process for Fascism has been the events of June 30 in
Germany, which marked a turning point of international significance. The leaders of the
fighting forces of German Fascism, the principal leaders of the Storm Troops, within
fifteen months of the accession of Fascism to power had to be shot down by the leader of
German Fascism, Hitler, as the representative and agent of the demands of German
Finance-Capital and of its direct instrument, the Reichswehr. The majority of the Storm
Troops had to be liquidated. We see here the classic demonstration of the process of
Fascism after power, the alienation and disillusionment of the petit-bourgeois and
semi-proletarian elements which were made the tools and dupes of Finance-Capital and now
find all their aspirations thwarted with the denial

8. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

of "the second revolution," the consequent narrowing of the social basis of
the Fascist regime, and the ever more open demonstration of its real character as the
terrorist dictatorship of Finance-Capital. While a warning must again be uttered against
exaggerating the tempo of development and rate of growth of mass opposition, it is evident
that a single chain unites the phases of the factory elections in the spring of 11934,
with their unfavourable results for the Nazis, the intensive campaign against the
"critics and carpers," the alleged "revolt" and its bloody suppression
on June 3o, and the results of the plebiscite in August, when (after the declaration of
Goebbels on the eve of the poll that the loss of a single vote in comparison with the
previous November would be a disaster) the direct No vote rose from 2.1 millions in
November, 1933, to 4.3 millions in August, 1934, and reached an average Of 20 per cent. in
the main industrial towns. Parallel with this process has gone forward the steadily
worsening economic situation, the mounting adverse trade balance in place of the previous
exports surplus, the sharp cutting down of imports of essential raw materials, and
tightening Organisation on a war basis of rationing and hardship (reflected in the tone of
Hitler's Buckerberg speech of September 30, 1934: "Never will they bring us to our
knees," "if the worst comes to the worst" etc.. The whole concentration of
Nazi policy becomes more and more openly directed to the most intensive preparation of war
as the sole path forward.

On the other side, the examples of Germany and Austria have led to a widespread
awakening of working class and general popular opposition to Fascism in all countries; and
this has led to a rapid advance of the united working class front, and, in particular, the
united front of the Socialist and Communist Parties, against the fascist and war menace in
a number of leading countries. This extending development of the united working class
front is the most important and the most hopeful development of 1934. In this advance the
French working class has led the way. The united front pact of the French Socialist Party
and of the French Communist Party was finally signed  on July 27, 1934; and the
powerful influence of this common front is stimulating and mobilising the entire working
class, and spreading confidence and fighting spirit, has been the decisive factor in
delaying the planned rapid offensive of

9 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Fascism in France during 1934. With the fall of the Doumergue- Tardieu Cabinet of
National Concentration in November, with the combined demand of all the bourgeois forces
for anti-democratic constitutional changes, and with the Fascist groupings preparing
renewed offensives, heavy tests are now in front for the fighting strength of the united
working class in France.

At the same time in Austria the lessons of the February battles have produced a
far-reaching transformation in the working class. The illegal Communist Party has advanced
to the position of a mass party with the absorption of the left Social Democratic and
Schutzbund elements, many organisations in leading working-class districts coming over en
bloc.

The Revolutionary Socialist Committees, composed of former Social Democratic elements
and later setting up the United Socialist Party, have maintained the old forms and contact
with the emigrant leadership and with the Second International but have proclaimed the aim
of the dictatorship of the proletariat and denounced the old "democratic and
reformist illusions" ("The Fascist dictatorship in Austria has dispelled all
democratic and reformist illusions among the workers"letter of the Central Committee
of the Revolutionary Socialists of Vienna to Bauer and to the Second International on May
20, 1934). In July a united front was established by the Communist Party, the Central
Committee of the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria, and the Committee of Action of the
Schutzbund, with a joint manifesto for "the revolutionary dictatorship of the working
class" and for "a united revolutionary class party of the Austrian
proletariat."

The united front of the Socialist and Communist Parties was also established in Italy,
in the Saar and (in September) in Spain. Among the working class youth organisations in
all countries the advance of the united front was even more marked.

On the other hand, the British Labour Party and a number of other Social Democratic
Parties, notably the Scandinavian, the Dutch, the Belgian, the Swiss and the
Czecho-Slovak, actively opposed the united front and even developed extended disciplinary
measures to prevent its realisation. In October, 1934, the Communist International
approached the Second International for common action in support of the Spanish

10. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

workers. A meeting took place, at which the representatives of the Second
International, Vandervelde and Adler, while declaring  themselves unable to agree to
any immediate common action or to commit their constituent parties, agreed to continue the
negotiations with a view to reaching a basis of common action analogous to that in France.
The British Labour Party, on the other hand, which is the largest section of the Second
International, and which had just at its Southport Conference passed draconian decisions
against any form of united front or even "loose association" with Communism,
expressed strong disapproval of any negotiations taking place. At the same time the
Spanish Socialist Party, equally a section of the Second International, had not only
reached a united front with the Communist Party, but was taking direct part in armed civil
war under the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This extreme and extending division and disparateness of policies among the parties of
the Second International is a symptom of the profound process of transformation going
forward among the Social Democratic workers under the influence of the object-lesson of
Fascism. The further development of this situation in the international working-class
movement is of critical importance.

The Spanish revolutionary mass struggle, reaching in October 1934, to the stage of open
civil war against the advancing Fascist offensive of the combined reactionary
clerical-militarist-landlord-bourgeois forces, and in the province of Asturias reaching to
the formation of Soviets, has immeasurably raised the whole international working-class
movement, even more than the battles of Vienna in February. It has revealed a far higher
degree of mass-participation and unity, and of consciousness of revolutionary aim, even
though not yet reaching the conditions of Organisation and leadership for final victory.
The formation of the Soviet regime in Asturias at the outset of the struggle, and the
prolonged and tenacious resistance against all the forces of the Spanish Government,
reaches a point of revolutionary struggle unequalled in Western Europe since the days of
the Hungarian and Bavarian Soviet Republics in 1919. The lesson endeavoured to be drawn by
the reformists, of the inevitable failure of armed struggle against the military resources
of modern governments, is the

11. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

exact opposite of the reality; for the prolonged resistance of the workers of Asturias,
facing alone the entire forces of the Spanish Government and its African levies, has
abundantly shown that, if the workers of the other principal regions, and especially
Catalonia, Andalusia and Madrid, had been fighting at the same time, with equal tenacity
and leadership, the forces of the Government would have been powerless to cope with the
situation, and a Soviet Spain would have been already won. The Spanish revolutionary
struggle at the end of 1934, following on Vienna at the beginning, is the signal of the
future in Europe.

But the heaviest struggles are still in front. In the face of the present international
situation of the increasing difficulties, desperation and discrediting of Fascism, the
weakening of its mass  basis in the countries where it has won power, and the
gathering of mass forces of resistance in the countries where it has not yet won power, a
new illusion has begun to be widely spread in Liberal and Social Democratic circles-the
illusion of the retreat of Fascism. It is said that Fascism has passed its zenith, is on
the downgrade, that the heaviest danger of Fascism is passing. The extreme pessimisitic
defeatism of a year and a half ago is giving place to a no less baseless and illusory
optimistic complacency. A year ago the prophecies were all of an "epoch of
Fascism" lasting for decades. To-day a Citrine can declare that "dictatorship in
every land has passed its peak; there was an appearance of stability about the regime in
Germany, but he was satisfied that even there a change would gradually but surely come,
and that ultimately the democratic rights of the people would assert themselves"
(speech to the International Clothing Workers' Conference, August, 1934).

Underlying this outlook of a section of the Social Democratic leadership is undoubtedly
the belief that Fascism, faced with increasing internal difficulties and mass discontent,
may yet be compelled to turn to Social Democracy for assistance, and that a renewed sphere
of permitted activity may open out for the Social Democratic and trade union leadership
within Fascism (as was already hoped for and sought by German Social Democracy in the
initial period of the Hitler regime by the May 17 vote for Hitler and the trade union
bureaucracy's courting of the Nazis). Nor are signs of this possibility lacking. The

12 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

well-informed Manchester Guardian special correspondent (always in close touch with
Social Democratic circles) reported in August that Hitler, in view of the failure of the
Labour Front and the Nazi factory cells to win the support of the workers, had approached
former Social Democratic leaders with a view to the formation of "non-political trade
unions"; the proposal had been referred to the Executive at Prague, and "Wels
was in favour of further negotiations" (the subsequent formal denial issued by Wels,
to the effect that he had not met any representative of Hitler-the intermediary was in
fact a Social Democrat- left the essence of the Manchester Guardian report unrefuted).
Similarly may be noted Bauer's suggestion in the August Kampf that the Schuschnigg
Clerico-Fascist Government might extend its basis to the left by "an understanding
with the working class." In Italy during the same period Mussolini made his approach
to the former Socialist leaders, Caldara and Schiavi, for their collaboration and even for
the issue of a permitted "Socialist" journal in Milan. These are only signs so
far; but the possibility is not excluded that Fascism in difficulties may turn to the
collaboration of a section of the Social Democratic and old trade union leadership (as was
done by De Rivera in Spain, by Pilsudski in Poland, by Bulgarian Fascism, etc.).*

These hopes of a section of the old Social Democratic leadership, however, bear no
relation to the real process of transformation taking  place in the main body of the
Social Democratic workers and rapid advance to militant struggle and working class unity.

* How thin is the margin between the ideology of the old Social Democratic leadership
and Fascism is illustrated by the expression of a representative of German Social
Democracy, E. Conze, who has been conducting propaganda in the British Labour Movement
since the advent of Hitler to power. He writes:

"Fascism is the organised attempt to introduce Socialist planning with the consent
of Big Business" (E. Conze, Time and Tide, July 28, 1934.)

"I do not mind the Fascists being labelled 'capitalistic.' 1 want to add, however,
that the self-destructive policy of German reformism and Communism created to a certain
extent a temporary harmony between the interests of the masses and those of the
capitalists, which was exploited by Fascism. If the masses have no chance to get
socialism, they must back capitalist imperialism as the only alternative" (E. Conze,
Plebs, October 1934).

From this typical Social Democratic view of Fascism as "the organised attempt to
introduce Socialist planning with the consent of Big Business," representing "to
a certain extent a temporary harmony between the interests of the masses and those of the
capitalists," it is obviously no very far step to cooperation with Fascism, 13.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

No illusion could be more dangerous than the illusion that Fascism can be in retreat
without a decisive struggle, that Fascism can ever be finally overcome save by the
workingclass revolution and the establishment of the working-class dictatorship. It is
equally necessary to fight the illusion of the inevitability of Fascism, or of the
inevitable long-term power of Fascism in the countries where it has won power, as it is
necessary to fight the illusion that a temporary fluctuation can mean the retreat and
ultimate disappearance of Fascism, or disappearance of the menace of Fascism in the
countries where it has not yet conquered, without a decisive revolutionary struggle. On
the contrary, the greater the difficulties of Fascism, the more desperate and ruthless
will be its fight for existence. The massing of the working-class united front does not
yet mean the defeat of Fascism; it means only the massing of the forces for the struggle
against Fascism and for the final revolutionary struggle.

It has been the essential purpose of the present book to establish that Fascism is not
merely the expression of a particular  movement, of a particular party within modern
society, but that it is the most complete expression of the whole tendency of modern
capitalism in decay, as the final attempt to defeat the working- class revolution and
organise society on the basis of decay. This tendency runs through all modern capitalist
countries without exception, and the advent of open Fascism to power is only its final and
completed expression. The drive against the working- class, the strengthening of executive
and police powers (Sedition Bill in England, constitutional reforms in France, new
emergency dictatorship forms in the United States), the attempt to paralyse the
working-class organisations from within upon a basis of enforced class-co-operation and
war against all revolutionary elements (social fascism), the drive to war and increasing
Organisation of the entire economic social and political structure for war, go rapidly
forward in all countries, including the formally "democratic" countries,

Britain, France and the United States. The fight against Fascism is the fight against
this entire process of modern capitalism.

In particular, the drive to war, in close unity with the drive

to Fascist forms of Organisation and preparation of war within

14. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

each country, becomes the more and more dominant character of the present stage.

The supreme task now is to build up the widest United Front against Fascism and War.
Widespread anti-Fascist and anti-war feeling exists on all sides. But the essential need
is organisation. The resistance to the united front must be overcome. No separate and
sectional interests can be allowed to stand in the way of this. The all- inclusive united
working-class front, drawing in its wake the mass of the petit-bourgeois and unorganised
elements, requires to be built up in every country. Only the widest common front can
defeat Fascism. And for the victory of the struggle it is essential to understand the true
character of the issues, the final necessity of the revolutionary alternative, which can
alone defeat Fascism and war by the victory of the socialist revolution.

In the six months since this book was published, the urgency of these issues has become
still greater.

A VERY sharp issue confronts present society. Events move with great speed. The
traditional forms of thought still cling to the remnants of past periods. The victory and
advance of Fascism over an extending area has come as a brutal shock to millions. Yet
Fascism is no sudden growth. For a decade and a half the whole post-war social development
has been incubating Fascism. To all those who have hitherto accepted as unquestioned the
existing social forms and their continuity, and above all to those who have looked to the
possibility of peaceful progressive advance within those existing social forms, and who
have dismissed the revolutionary outlook as the fantasy of a minority, Fascism, and more
especially the victory of Fascism in an advanced industrial country such as Germany, has
come as a brutal shock. It may yet prove a salutary shock, if it can open their eyes to
the real issues of our period. With every year, and with every month, that the long
overdue social revolution in Western Europe and America, for which the world war of 1914
already gave the signal-that is, the ending of the private ownership of the means of
production which inevitably produces the increasing contradictions, anarchy, destruction
and barbarism of the present day-is delayed, denied and postponed, the world situation
grows more desperate, and the whole future of society is brought into question. The world
war of 1914, the opening of the world socialist revolution in 1917, the partial
revolutions and civil struggles succeeding the war, the post-war chaos, the world economic
crisis since 1929, and now the victory and advance of Fascism and approach to a second
world war-these are the successive warnings of the real issues of the present stage.
Fascism has already been the subject of an enormous discussion and literature over twelve
years, and above all over the past two years. Yet the treatment of Fascism has hardly yet
brought out its full significance.

16 INTRODUCTION

On the one side, Fascism has been widely treated as simply the expression of brutality
and violence, of militarism and suppression, of national and racial egoism, of the revolt
against culture, against the old slogans of liberty, equality and brotherhood.

On the other side, Fascism has been treated as the expression of  national
rebirth, of the emergence of youth, of the end of decadent liberalism and intellectualism,
of the advance to a balanced and organised social order.

In order to get closer to the true character of Fascism, it is necessary to go deeper,
to see Fascism in relation to the whole character of modern social development, of which
Fascism is an expression and reflection, and above all to get down to the basic movement
and driving forces of economy and technique' of which the social and political forms,
including Fascism, are only the reflection.

Such an examination will reveal beyond dispute that the modern development of technique
and productive powers has reached a point at which the existing capitalist forms are more
and more incompatible with the further development of production and utilisation of
technique. There is war between them, increasingly violent and open since 1914, and
entering into a new and extreme stage in the world economic crisis and its outcome. One
must end the other. Either the advance of the productive forces must end capitalism. Or
the maintenance of capitalism must end the advance of production and technique and begin a
reverse movement. In fact the delay of the revolution has meant that the reverse movement
has already begun throughout the world outside the Soviet Union.

Only two paths are therefore open before present society.

One is to endeavour to strangle the powers of production, to arrest development, to
destroy material and human forces, to fetter international exchange, to check science and
invention, to crush the development of ideas and thought, and to concentrate on the
Organisation of limited, self-sufficient, nonprogressive hierarchic societies in a state
of mutual war-in short, to force back society to a more primitive stage in order to
maintain the existing class domination. This is the path of Fascism, the path to which the
bourgeoisie in all modern countries where it rules is increasingly turning, the path of
human decay.

INTRODUCTION 11

The other alternative is to organise the new productive forces as social forces, as the
common wealth of the entire existing society for the rapid and enormous raising of the
material basis of society, the destruction of poverty, ignorance and disease and of class
and national separations, the unlimited carrying forward of science and culture, and the
Organisation of the world communist society in which all human beings will for the first
time be able to reach full  stature and play their part in the collective
development of the future humanity. This is the path of Communism, the path to which the
working masses who are the living representatives of the productive forces and whose
victory over capitalist class domination can alone achieve the realisation of this path,
are increasingly turning; the path which modern science and productive development makes
both possible and necessary, and which opens up undreamt-of possibilities for the future
development of the human race.

Which of these alternatives will conquer? This is the sharp question confronting human
society to-day.

Revolutionary Marxism is confident that, because the productive forces are on the side
of Communism, Communism will conquer; that the victory of Communism, which is expressed in
the victory of the proletariat, is ultimately inevitable as the sole possible final
outcome of the existing contradictions; that the nightmare of the other alternative, of
the "Dark Ages" whose creeping shadow begins already to haunt the imagination of
current thinkers, will yet be defeated, will be defeated by the organised forces of
international Communism.

But this inevitability is not independent of the human factor. On the contrary, it can
only be realised through the human factor. Hence the urgency of the fight against Fascism,
and for the victory of the proletariat, on which the whole future of human society
depends. The time grows shorter; the sands are running through the glass.

To many, the alternative of Fascism or Communism is no welcome alternative, and they
would prefer to deny it and to regard both as rival, and in their view even parallel,
forms of extremism. They dream of a third alternative which shall be neither, and shall
realise a peaceful harmonious progress without class struggle, through the forms of
capitalist "democracy," "planned capitalism," etc. 18. INTRODUCTION

This dream of a third alternative is in fact illusory. On the one side, it is the echo
of the conceptions of a past period, of the period of liberal capitalism, which was
already perishing with the advent of imperialism, and which cannot be revived when the
conditions that gave rise to it have passed away, in the stage of the extreme decay of
capitalism and of the extreme intensification of the class struggle. Even the caricature
of democratic forms which is still precariously maintained in the imperialist states of
Western Europe and America is increasingly supplemented and displaced by more and more
open dictatorial and repressive methods (increase of executive powers, diminution of the
role of Parliament, growth of emergency powers, extension of police action and violence,
restriction of the rights of speech and meeting, restriction of the right to strike,
violent suppression of demonstrations and strikes, combined with the typical methods of
social demagogy of the millionaire Press, stampede  elections, etc.). The trend of
capitalism in all countries towards fascist forms is unmistakable, and is wider than the
question of a Mussolini or a Hitler.

On the other side, the dream of a "planned capitalism" is already an
unconscious groping after Fascism without facing its logical implications. For in practice
the endeavour to realise the self- contradictory aim of a "planned capitalism"
can only be pursued along the path of Fascism, of repression of the productive forces and
of the working class.

Thus the myth of a third alternative is in fact no alternative, but in reality a part
of the advance towards Fascism.

Fascism is not inevitable. Fascism is not a necessary stage of capitalist development
through which all countries must pass. The social revolution can forestall Fascism, as it
has done in Russia. But if the social revolution is delayed, then Fascism becomes
inevitable.

Fascism can be fought. Fascism can be fought and defeated. But Fascism can only be
fought and defeated if it is fought without illusions and with clear understanding of the
issues. The causes of Fascism lie deep-rooted in existing society. Capitalism in its decay
breeds Fascism. Capitalist democracy in decay breeds Fascism. The only final guarantee
against Fascism, the only final wiping out of the causes of Fascism, is the victory of the
proletarian dictatorship.

Fascism offers no solution of a possible stable social organisation

19.

to replace the existing society in dissolution. On the contrary, Fascism carries
forward all the contradictions of existing class society, because Fascism is only a form,
a means of capitalist class rule in conditions of extreme decay. Not only that, but
Fascism carries forward the contradictions of existing class society to their most extreme
point, when the contradictions are laid bare in open civil war and the organisation of the
entire capitalist state upon the basis of permanent civil war. Fascism is thus society at
war within itself. On this basis, Fascism, so far from being a solution of existing social
problems, represents their extreme intensification to the point of final disruption. The
only final outcome can be the victory of Communism, because Communism alone contains
within itself the solution of the contradictions.

But in the interim period of struggle and transition, if it is  prolonged, if
Fascism succeeds for a period in organising its basis of civil war and violent reactionary
dictatorship, an enormous consequent destruction of material wealth, of human lives and of
culture, can take place, and increasingly threatens. Therein is the desperate urgency of
the fight, not only for the ultimately inevitable victory of Communism, but for the rapid
victory of Communism.

The urgency of the present issues needs no emphasis. All sense the gathering storms. A
host of issues, of war, of armaments, of Fascism, of the economic chaos, are taken up. But
none of these issues can be taken in abstraction. It is necessary to see them in relation
to the whole social development, to the basic issue underlying all these forms, the issue
of the rule of the bourgoisie or of the proletariat, of capitalism or socialism, on which
the future of the human race depends.

Present society is ripe, is rotten-ripe for the social revolution Delay does not mean
pacific waiting on the issue. The dialectic of reality knows no standing still. Delay
means ever-extending destruction, decay, barbarism. The words of Lenin on the eve of
October apply with gathering force to the present world situation: "Delay means
death."

IN the issue of the Automobile Engineer for March 1931, appeared an article on
"The Machine Tool: An Analysis of the Factors Determining Obsolescence."

This article was not written as a criticism of existing society. It was written, with
considerable detail statistical calculations, to assist employers or their technical
managers to determine under what conditions the installation of new high-production
machinery can be profitable. Nevertheless the conclusions reached were in the highest
degree revolutionary.

The first conclusion was to the effect that, quoting the words of a paper of Mr. H. C.
Armitage to the Institute of Automobile Engineers: "high-production machines that are
being developed in America cannot be economically used in this country." The reason
given was "because existing British plants can already produce more rapidly than the
products can be disposed of. . . . The statement has been made many times that American
factories in the main industries could more than supply the world's needs, even if all
other supply sources closed down." On this ground, objection was taken to the common
complaint  of "uninformed critics of British industry" that British
employers had fallen behind in the race because of maintaining "hopelessly out-of-
date factory equipment."

On the contrary, in fact, the British capitalists knew very well what they were doing
when they left their German and American rivals during the decade after the war to install
gigantic modern equipment of large-scale production at heavy expense, requiring heavy
maintenance costs and an enormous market, while they themselves preferred mainly to
concentrate on speeding up and driving harder their labour on relatively older machinery,
requiring less maintenance costs and a smaller market; on this basis they have been better
able to meet the crisis than their German and American rivals.

22. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The second conclusion went even further and declared that this principle now applied
also to American industry:

The time has now arrived when Mr. Armitage's remarks may be widened to a statement that
the latest machine tools now being developed in America cannot even be economically used
in the United States.

That is to say, the most modern developments of technique can no longer be utilised in
even the most advanced countries of capitalism.

The third conclusion provides the complement to the first two. One market, it is
pointed out, still remains for the most advanced machine tools. That market is the Soviet
Union.

American machine-tool makers, having a range of equipment sufficient to meet the needs
of the American production plants, have supplied to Russia machine tools outside this
range, specially designed to obtain still faster production. An excessive price has been
demanded for these special machines on the ground that, while the tools show an
improvement in output speed on their standard lines, they have no immediate prospects of
finding other customers for them, there being no demand outside Russia for faster
production than can be obtained with existing models.

Thus, according to the testimony of this technical engineering journal, the most modern
developments of technique, making possible the most extensive and rapid production with
the minimum of labour, can no longer be utilised in the countries of capitalism, where
they have originated, but can only be utilised to-day in the country of socialist
construction, in the Soviet Union.

The significance of this present stage of technique and society here revealed-and this
example is only one of ten thousand constantly arising in every direction in the present
periodrequires no emphasis. Here, as in a single crystal, is expressed the whole present
stage of the general crisis of capitalism, of the exhaustion of the possibilities of
 productive advance within the fetters of the old private property ownership, and
the necessity of the socialisation of production as the sole condition for further
development.

In the situation that this picture reveals lies the real root of the issue of Fascism
or Communism. In this situation lies the basic cause why precisely at the present stage of
social development

23. THE GROWTH OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES

the issue of Fascism or Communism inescapably confronts existing society.

I. The Growth of the Productive Porces.

A century ago, Robert Owen, on the basis of his experience as a successful
manufacturer, noted the contradiction between the new social productive labour and the
private appropriation of the f ruits:

The working part of this population Of 2,500 persons (in New Lanark) was daily
producing as much real wealth for society as, less than half a century before, it would
have required the working part of a population of 6oo,ooo to create. I asked myself, what
became of the difference between the wealth consumed by 2,500 persons and that which would
have been consumed (Robert Owen, The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human
Race, 1849.)

The contradiction of capitalism was thus already clearly seen by Owen on the basis of
his conduct of the model factory of New Lanark from 18oo, to 1829. But the criticism
remained an idealist criticism. For capitalism in this period, despite all the cruelty and
poverty involved in its process, was still ascending; it was still able to organise and
develop the productive forces; it was still a progressive factor, carrying through the
transformation from wasteful and uneconomic small-scale production to modern large-scale
production, and thus preparing the material basis for the future society. The critique of
capitalism in this period by Owen and others remained utopian.

The answer to this type of critique of capitalism was provided by Marx in his
discussion of a similar line of argument of Proudhon: am Al

In 1770 the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain was fifteen millions and
the productive population three millions. The scientific power of production would about
equal a population of twelve more millions; thus making a total of fifteen millions of
productive forces. Thus the productive power was to the population as I is to I, and the
scientific power was to manual power as 4 is to I.  In 1840 the population did not
exceed thirty millions; the productive population was six millions, while the scientific
power amounted to 650 millions, that is to say, it was to the whole population as 2 1 to
I, and to manual power as 108 to I.

24. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

In English society the day of tabour had thus acquired in seventy years a surplus Of
2,700 per cent. of productivity, that is to say that in 1840 it produced twenty-seven
times as much as in 17 7 o. According to M. Proudhon it is necessary to put the following
question: Why is the English workman of 184o not twenty-seven times richer than the
workman of 1770?

In putting such a question one would naturally suppose that the English had been able
to produce these riches without the historical conditions in which they were produced-such
as: the private accumulation of capital; the modern division of labour; the automatic
workshop; anarchic competition; the wage system, and, in fine, all that which is based
upon the antagonism of classes-having to exist. But these were precisely the necessary
conditions for the development of the productive forces and of the surplus of labour. Thus
it was necessary, in order to obtain this development of the productive forces, and this
surplus of labour, that there should be some classes which thrive and others which perish.

(Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, 1, 3.)

This basic conception of the capacity of development of the productive forces as the
measure of a progressive or reactionary social order is no less strongly expressed in
Marx's praise of Ricardo:

The reproach moved against him, that he has an eye only to the development of the
productive forces regardless of "human beings," regardless of the sacrifice in
human beings and capital values incurred, strikes precisely his strong point. The
development of the productive forces of social labour is the historical task and privilege
of capital. It is precisely in this way that it unconsciously creates the material
requirements of a higher mode of production.

(Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Kerr edition, P. 304.)

The Marxist critique of capitalism thus basically differs from the utopian school still
surviving in the so-called "English Socialism." The Marxist critique recognises
the historical role of capitalism in the development of the productive forces. But the
Marxist critique laid bare, already nearly a century ago when no other economists or
 thinkers had the slightest glimmering of the future line of development, that the
inner laws of capitalist development would inevitably lead to a stage at which capitalism
could no longer organise the productive forces, but could only result in successively more
violent crises, stagnation and decay, and at which only the new social class, the
proletariat, freed from the limitations of private property, could

THE GROWTH OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES 25.

alone organise the social productive forces to a higher level. This is the heart of
Marxism, whose political expression is the dictatorship of the proletariat as the
necessary condition of the solution of the problems of the present epoch.

It is this culminating stage of capitalism that we are at present living through-the
stage of imperialism or capitalism in decay, and, more particularly now since 1914, the
stage of the general crisis of capitalism, or final phase within imperialism, when the
forces of production are in ever more violent conflict with the cramping fetters of the
existing property relations of production, when capitalism in more and more obvious decay
is faced with the advance of victory of the proletarian social revolution, and when
capitalism in decay is resorting to every device and expedient to maintain its power.

Let us note first the gigantic growth of the productive forces since the early
criticisms of a century ago.

The following table gives the growth of industrial machinepower, omitting
motor-transport power, in the past century, in millions of horse power (one horse power is
commonly calculated as equivalent to the muscular power of six men).

(Hausleiter, Revolution in der Weltwirtschaft, 1932, published in English under the
title The Machine Unchained, 1933.)  A century ago, we have seen, it was already
complained that productive power bad increased twenty-seven times over in England in the
previous seventy years without any corresponding improvement in the standards of the
workers.

But in the century since 1835 industrial machine power multiplied a further hundred
times over in England, and six hundred times over in the whole world-and has ended in mass
starvation and unemployment without equal.

In the decade and a half alone between 1913 and 1928 industrial machine power in Europe
has increased So per cent.,

26. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

in the United States 100 per cent., and in the extra-European countries other than the
United States 200 per cent.

The inclusion of all forms of power would bring the world total to something like 1,500
million horse power.

On this basis Stuart Chase in his Machines and Men (1929) has estimated the machine
power of the world as representing the muscular power of 9,000 million additional men, or
equivalent to five slaves for every man, woman and child of the human race.

Between 1913 and 1927 electrical power production, according to the report on
"Power Resources of the World," presented to the World Power Conference in 1930,
increased from 47,000 million units to 200,000 million units. Between the first and second
World Power Conferences in 1924 and 1930, electrical output doubled from 150,000 million
units to 300,000 million units (Economist, 21 June, 1930).

This expansion of productive power has most strongly affected manufacturing industry,
but has also affected agriculture and the output of raw materials, not in equal degree,
but far outstripping the growth of human population.

Already by 1890, according to Hausleiter (op. cit.) the costs of agricultural
production in the great Grain Circle (United States, Canada, Argentine, Australia) had
been reduced by mechanisation to one quarter of the costs of the old production by
hand-labour in 1830.

Between 1 890 and 192 1, according to the report of the Senior Trade Commissioner in
Canada for May 1930, further mechanisation of agriculture and extension of the area of
cultivation had multiplied the yield of wheat per agricultural worker fivefold:

Mr. Field lays great stress on the rapidity with which power-driven machinery is
displacing labour in Canadian agriculture. Whereas in 1890 133/2 bushels of wheat were
grown for each rural dweller, there were seventy in 1921; and as the most revolutionary
machine, the  combined reaper and thresher was only introduced in 1924, the output
per worker must now be a great deal higher. Moreover, the scope for the mechanisation of
agriculture has by no means yet been fully exploited.- (Economist, September 8, 1930).

Between 1920 and 1929 the number of tractors in the United States increased from
246,000 to 843,000 (U. S. Yearbook of Agriculture, 1930).

27. THE GROWTH OF THE PROD CTIVE FORCES

Between 1900 and 1924-8 the harvests of all cereals increased in Australia 104 per
cent., in the Argentine 172 per cent., and in Canada 330 per cent. Between 1913 and 1928
the volume of world grain exports increased 147 per cent. In the same period world
population increased 11.6 per cent.

The old ignorant Malthusian notions of absolute "overpopulation," or the
modern lugubrious chants of birth-control as the necessary solution of poverty, are thus
abundantly exploded by facts. It is worth noting that this reactionary propaganda is still
maintained, not only in clerical and conservative quarters, but also by the would-be
"progressive" (actually, as we shall have occasion to see, one of the real
bulwarks of conservatism in England) Labour Party. The Labour official organ writes:

The figures published by the League of Nations show that the world population, already
2,012,000,000, is increasing by 20,000,000 a year.

That means that unless the rate of increase is checked, it will have doubled in far
less than a century; for the increase is, as it were, at compound interest.

There is not the least reason for assuming that the "march of progress" will
automatically provide ways and means of feeding and supporting that doubled population.

There is only too much evidence-in India and China for example - that the overcrowding
of a too big population brings with it appalling conditions of misery.

Either an unendurable suffering, or the "natural checks" of famine and
pestilence and a high death rate. Or, on the other hand, a deliberate and conscious
lowering and controlling of the birth rate.

Those are the alternatives that face humanity.

(Daily Herald editorial, August 8, 1932.)  Fortunately, these are not the
alternatives that confront humanity to-day. The alternatives that confront humanity to-day
are serious enough; but they are alternatives of the destruction and anarchy of
capitalism, involving still greater poverty and misery in the midst of abundance and
rising productive power, or the social organisation of production, bringing abundance for
all. The "overpopulation" (like the simultaneous "overproduction") is
only relative to the capitalist conditions of production. Against this reactionary and
vicious propaganda, concealing under cover of obsolete clerical superstitions the true
social causes of poverty and misery (concealing

28. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

also, characteristically enough, the role of imperialism in India in creating poverty)
may be quoted the opinion of the leading international statistician, Sir George Knibbs,
who estimated that even with present resources and technique the earth could easily
maintain four times the present population at a good standard.

The late Sir George Knibbs . . . estimated after a careful survey that the earth could
well support a population four times as great as at present, or about eight thousand
million.

The facts of the crisis show a very different picture to the cant of
"overpopulation" outstripping natural resources. Already by 1925, according to
the reports presented to the 1927 International Economic Conference at Geneva, despite the
destruction of the world war, world production of foodstuffs and raw materials had risen
over pre-war by 16 to -18 per cent., against an estimated increase of population by 5 per
cent. Between 1913 and 1928, according to the League of Nations Economic Section, world
production of foodstuffs and raw materials had increased by 25 per cent., of foodstuffs by
16 per cent., of raw materials by 40 per cent. (of industrial products enormously more),
against an estimated increase of world population by 10 per cent.

World stocks of primary products, on the basis of 1923-5 as 100, increased by the end
of 1926 to 134, by 1928 to 161, by 1929 to 192, by 1930 to 235, by 1931 to 264, and by the
end of 1932, despite all the destruction of stocks, still stood at 263, or more than two
and a half times the volume of eight years before (Economist, May 6, 1933). World stocks
of manufactures showed a less overwhelming accumulation only because "the existence
of a large volume of unemployed but immediately available factors of production" has
the  same effect in the sphere of manufactures "corresponding to that exercised
by enormous stocks of primary products" (ibid., May 13, 1933).

The growth of production in every direction, whether of foodstuffs, raw materials or
manufactures, has thus greatly exceeded the growth of world population. And the increase
of productive power, which has only been partially and incompletely used under capitalist
conditions, with many artificial

PRODUCTIVE FORCES AGAINST EXISTING SOCIETY 29.

limitations and restrictions, has been in reality enormously greater than the actual
growth of production.

But this gigantic increase of productive power has outstripped the capacity of
capitalism to organise it.

The outcome of this gigantic increase of productive power has been world crisis,
stagnation and closing down of production, mass unemployment, mass impoverishment and the
lowering of standards, on a scale without parallel since the beginning of capitalism,
accompanied by growing social and political disturbance and recurrent war.

This problem is the basic problem confronting present-day society.

2. The Conflict of the Productive Forces Against Existing Society.

This is the world situation which reveals that the system of capitalist relations, the
capitalist class ownership of the means of production, has outlived its progressive role,
and has become a fetter on the Organisation of production.

The world war was the beginning of the violent explosion of this conflict, of the
conflict between the ever-growing productive forces and the limits of existing
property-society. Since 1914 we have entered into a new era, the era of the general crisis
of capitalism and of the advance of the world socialist revolution. The world economic
crisis which opened in 1929 has brought these issues of the present stage of society, and
of the basic economic contradictions underlying them, more sharply to the general
consciousness than ever before. But the significance of this world economic crisis is
commonly seen through too narrow spectacles. It is seen as a special temporary
disorganisation breaking in on an otherwise harmonious and smoothly working economic
 mechanism. Alike in the pessimistic and the optimistic readings of its significance
the proportions have tended to be lost. just as the extreme low depths of depression
produced almost universal utterances of pessimism and apocalyptic gloom from the leaders
and professors of capitalism, so the first signs of an upward movement produced a
universal sigh of relief and reprieve, as if the worst were over and all might yet be wen
again. In fact, "the devil was sick."

But the real significance of the world economic crisis, which has so greatly exceeded
in its scope all previous economic crises,

30. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

can only be correctly understood in relation to the whole development of capitalism,
and in particular the development of capitalism during the last two decades-that is, in
relation to the general crisis of capitalism which opened in 19 14.

The general crisis of capitalism should not be confused with the old cyclical crises of
capitalism which, although demonstrating the inherent contradictions of capitalist
relations, nevertheless constituted an integral part and direct factor in the ascent of
capitalism. The cyclical crises, as illustrated in 1920-I and 1929, continue, but take on
a new and intensified character in the period of the general crisis.

The old cyclical crises were, according to Marx, "always but momentary and
forcible solutions of the existing contradictions, violent eruptions, which restore the
disturbed equilibrium for a while" (Capital III, P. 2 92 ). Their characteristic f
eature was to solve the contradictions, albeit by anarchically violent and destructive
means, to restore the equilibrium, and permit of the resumption of production on a higher
plane. They weeded out the smaller and less efficient concerns; they wiped out a portion
of capital values in order to save the remainder; they effected a concentration of
capital; they compelled a drive to open up new markets. On this basis they permitted,
after a relatively short period, the resumption of capitalist production at a higher
level.

Elements of this character can also be traced in the post-war world economic crisis;
but these "progressive" elements are overshadowed by the major, negative effects
of the whole process of the development of the cyclical crisis on the basis of the general
crisis of capitalism, in the consequent destruction of stabilisation and hastening of
revolutionising processes.

For the general crisis of capitalism admits of no such solution. The domination of the
imperialist Powers has already been expanded to its maximum extent throughout the world;
monopoly capitalism, which  had already divided up the greater part of the world by
the beginning of the twentieth century, and by 1914 was at war over its re-division, is
now faced with a still sharper situation of contradictions, not only between the
imperialist Powers, but also between imperialism and socialism, So far from there being
available new regions to open up, one sixth of the world has passed out of the sphere of
capitalism into that of the social revolution; the colonial peoples are rising in revolt;
the world available for capitalist exploitation has begun

PRODUCTIVE FORCES AGAINST EXISTING SOCIETY 31.

to contract. At the same time the growth of productive power is greater than ever, the
extreme crisis, competition and war forcing forward technical development at an unheard of
pace. Under these conditions there is no room for a harmonious solution, but only for ever
more violent conflict. The upward movements within the general crisis become ever shorter;
depression becomes the normal, broken by short upward movements and violent social and
political explosions; the recurrence of the old cyclical crisis within the general crisis
takes on a new intensity.

The general crisis of capitalism has now continued for twenty years without a break,
only changing one form for another. The violent explosion of the world war only gave place
to the still more profound struggle of revolution and counterrevolution throughout the
world. The defeat of the revolution in the countries outside the Soviet Union brought no
solution and peaceful development, but only laid bare the post-war chaos of capitalism.
The temporary stabilisation and upward movement of the middle 'twenties proved only a
false and illusory stabilisation; "the prosperity of the period 1923-29 was to a
large extent illusory; and the seeds of future trouble had already been sown"
(British Government Note to the United States, December 1, 1932). Its only outcome was the
new form of the basic contradiction expressed in the extreme world economic crisis which
began in 1929 and continues now in its fifth year. This in its turn breaks out into new
and violent explosions in the spread of Fascism and the visibly approaching second
world-war.

Already in the closing years of his life Engels noted the approach of a new era:
"there is now no doubt that the position has changed fundamentally by comparison with
formerly"; "we have entered upon a period much more dangerous for the old
society than that of the ten- year cycles"; "the crises become chronic"
(Engels, letter to Bebel, January 20, ISM). In 1909 Kautsky, writing then as a Marxist
theorist, in his Path to Power, exposed the revisionist illusions of gradual and peaceful
progress, and demonstrated the now close entry of capitalism into a period of violent
explosions. In 1916 Lenin in his Imperialism laid bare the foundations of the new period
as the period  of monopoly capitalism, in which all the contradictions come to a
head, of decaying capitalism, of the eve of the

32. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

socialist revolution, the period which broke into violent explosion in 19 14.

UP to 1913 capitalist production, despite the increasing tendencies of decay already
visible in imperialism, was still able to maintain an almost continuous ascending line.

For many decades before the war, world production, according to the best estimates
available, increased with remarkable regularity of trend, broken only in minor degree by
successive crises. This trend of increase ran through both the period of declining prices
from 1873 to 1895, and the period of rising prices from 1895 onwards.

(League of Nations World Economic Survey 1932-3, p. 68.)

Between 1860 and 1913, according to the tables presented in this publication, world
production of basic commodities ascended in an almost continuous line and multiplied from
four to five times. World industrial production ascended in an almost continuous line and
multiplied over six times.

But the twenty years since 19 14 reveal a different picture.

If the line of trend from 186o to 1913 is extended to 1932, the rather startling
conclusion is reached that the index of world production, on the hypothesis that nothing
bad occurred to alter its regular upward trend for the fifty preceding years, would to-day
be rather more than twice as great as it actually is. (ibid., p. 82.)

The present world economic crisis is without precedent:

There is no precedent for such a marked decline. Statistical series ranging back to
186o fail to reveal any previous period in which the decline in either raw material
production or manufactures has been so precipitate or so severe. Independent estimates
agree that in 1932 the level of industrial production in the world as a whole fell below
that of 1913. (ibid., p. 82.)

Thus the war and post-war period, taken as a whole, reveals the first large-scale
absolute setback of capitalist production.

The attempt is often made, on the basis of the above facts and figures, to argue that,
since 1914 appears as the great dividing point,  therefore the war is the cause of
all the present maladies. Comparisons are sometimes made to the postNapoleonic period of
unsettlement, revolutionary unrest and the industrial revolution; and the inference is
drawn that the troubles of the present period are also troubles of post- war unsettlement
and of the "second industrial revolution,

PRODUCTIVE FORCES AGAINST EXISTING SOCIETY 33.

heralding a no less great expansion within the forms of capitalism.

This very superficial approach to the real historical move. ment of two entirely
different periods, and to the crux of modern world problems, is demonstrably incorrect
both in fact and in reasoning.

In the first place, no comparison is possible between the post- Napoleonic period of
young and ascending capitalism and the twentieth century period of old and declining
capitalism. Fifteen years after the Napoleonic wars, production, trade and employment were
gigantically above the pre-war level; capitalist society was bounding forward. Fifteen
years after the war of 1914-18 production, trade and employment are actually below the
pre-war level; capitalist society is in a greater dilemma than ever, greater than even in
the period succeeding the war. The dislocation, instead of diminishing as the war recedes,
actually increases; it is greater fifteen years after the war than it was ten years after
the war. It is obvious that some deeper factor is at work than the disturbances consequent
on the war. At the same time, the social and political issues of the two periods are
basically different. The issue of the first half of the nineteenth century was still the
issue of the bourgeois revolution, which swept forward through the processes of the
Napoleonic wars and after, despite the seeming victories of reaction. The issue of the
first half of the twentieth century is the issue of the proletarian social revolution,
which began its advance in the conditions of the war of 1914-18, and which maintains its
growing strength in the midst of the capitalist reaction.

In the second place, it is not correct that the division between before 1914 and after
1914 is a simple and absolute division between the ascent and the descent of the level of
production. On the contrary, the actual level of production in 1927-9 was for the short
period of the boom higher than the pre-war level; the real growth of the contradictions,
which was to find expression in the subsequent slump falling below the pre-war level, lay
elsewhere. The true measure of the decline and bankruptcy of the existing capitalist order
lies, not in any simple arithmetical figures of the level of production, but in the growth
of the contradictions of the existing society to bursting point, in the growth of the
contradiction between the potential productive 

34. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

power and the actual production, between the conditions of existence of the bourgeoisie
and of the proletariat, between the rival imperialist Powers, and the consequent
expression of these in social and political explosions. It is in this sense that the
general crisis of capitalism dates from 1914, but its causes lie in the whole conditions
of the imperialist epoch *

Finally, and in consequence of the above, the world war of 1914-18, so far from being
the cause of the crisis of capitalism, was on the contrary itself only an expression and
breaking out of the crisis-a link in the chain of imperialist development. The war was no
arbitrary, accidental, unforeseeable first cause, suddenly breaking in from nowhere to
change the whole course of development. It was the direct consequence of the conditions of
imperialism, which was itself the direct outcome of the previous nineteenth-century
capitalist epoch. It was fully foreseen, and even predicted in detail for years
beforehand, as the outcome of the growing tensions of imperialism. Its outbreak coincided
with the gathering industrial crisis which was already beginning in America in 1913, and
spreading therefrom to hover menacingly over Europe. As the war-leader, Lloyd George,
confessed nearly twenty years after, the war appeared as the way out from the gathering
crisis, which he is now convinced would have in any case developed, even had the war not
broken out at that point:

If we had not had a great war, if we bad gone on as we were going, I am sure that
sooner or later we would have been confronted with something approximately like the
present chaos. There must be something fundamentally wrong with our economic system,
because abundance produce(Lloyd George, speech at Cambridge, Manchester Guardian Weekly,
April 7, 1933.)

The fact that the dynamic of capitalist development, even after the direct destruction
caused by the first world-war has been repaired, only reverts to the recurrence of still
more gigantic economic crisis and the visible approach to a second world-war, shows how
little of "accident" there was in the basic development of capitalism through
imperialism to world war, however large the role of "accident" may appear to be
in the particular historical  manifestations of the process.

In order to understand the problems of the present epoch of the general crisis of
capitalism, it is essential to be able to see

PRODUCTIVITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT 35.

deeper than the immediate surface manifestations and episodes, whether of the world war
of 1914 or the world economic crisis Of 1929, and to understand these in relation to the
general line of development, of which they are expressions. The general crisis of
capitalism, the conflict of the productive forces against the existing relations of
production, expresses itself in a whole series of successively growing conflicts and
explosions, up to the final victory of the proletarian social revolution. It is in
relation to this development of the general crisis of capitalism that Fascism is a further
stage and episode.

3. Productivity and Unemployment.

The development of the productive forces has rendered the old class-society obsolete.

Already before the end of the war the leading trust magnate, Lord Leverhulme, estimated
that, if the then existing productivity were organised, one hour's work per week of all
citizens would provide the necessaries of life for all:

With the means that science has already placed at our disposal, we might provide for
all the wants of each of us in food, shelter and clothing by one hour's work per week for
each of us from school age to dotage.

That was fifteen years ago. In the intervening decade and a half, according to the
engineer, J. L. Hodgson, in his paper on "Industrial and Communal Waste" before
the Royal Society of Arts on June 20, 1932, in the course of which he quoted and accepted
Lord Leverhulme's statement, "since that date our average potential productivity has
nearly doubled." One halfhour's work per week should thus provide a minimum standard
for all, and one hour's work per week an overwhelming abundance.

Why should this almost immeasurable increase in productive power and the possibility of
universal abundance result in universal impoverishment and lowering of standards? 
This is the question that confronts the whole human race, that is becoming a life and
death question for the nineteen hundred million human beings of the capitalist world
outside the Soviet Union, to which these hundreds of millions must find the answer or go
down in catastrophe.

36. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

It is evident that what is here in question is no natural or technical causes, but only
social causes-that there is no social organisation of production.

This question is sharpened by the contrast of the productive increase in the Soviet
Union alongside the actual decline of capitalist production. Between 1925 and 1932
industrial production in the Soviet Union (on the base of 1025-9 as 100) increased from 59
to 240; the corresponding figure for the United States decreased from 95 to 58, for
Britain from 99 to 86, and for Germany from 89 to 66 (League of Nations World Production
and Prices 1925-1932, P. 49). Between 1929 and 11932 industrial production in the Soviet
Union increased by 65 per cent. and in the capitalist world as a whole decreased by 37
percent. (League of Nations World Economic Survey, 19321933, pp. 85 and 7 0

The most glaring and direct living expression of this present stage of the
contradiction between the growth of the productive forces and existing society is the
spread of mass unemployment throughout the capitalist world, already before the onset of
the world economic crisis, and reaching a total at the height of the world economic
crisis, in 1933, according to official figures, of thirty millions, and according to
unofficial figures of fifty millions.

Britain, the oldest capitalist country, and the most advanced in decay, first reached
this basis of permanent mass unemployment. This situation revealed itself in the winter of
1920-2 1, and has continued up to the present without a break; in the beginning of 1933
the Chancellor of the Exchequer staggered the House of Commons by announcing that he
calculated on the continuance of such mass unemployment for the next ten years. The other
countries in the succeeding years reached a similar and even more extreme basis (running
at the highest point to eight millions in Germany and fourteen millions in the United
States).

Unemployment at a certain level has always been present in capitalism. The development
of production in capitalist conditions has always displaced workers and independent
producers, and thus created the industrial reserve army which was indispensable to meet
the fluctuations of capitalist production and to maintain the proletariat in 
subjection. But this industrial reserve army was a part of the machinery of expanding

PRODUCTIVITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT 37.

capitalist production; the absolute number of productive workers employed successively
grew. It is only since the war that the new phenomenon appeared of a permanent unemployed
army, grudgingly kept just alive at the lowest level of subsistence by the bourgeoisie,
while the absolute number of productive workers employed has directly decreased.

Of the possibility of such a stage of chronic unemployment and absolute decline of the
productive workers, Marx wrote:

A development of the productive forces which would diminish the absolute number of
labourers, that is, which would enable the entire nation to accomplish its total
production in a shorter time, would cause a revolution, because it would render the
majority of the population superfluous.

(Marx, Capital, 111,

Engels wrote in 1886: p.309.)

America will smash up England's industrial monopoly-whatever there is left of it-but
America cannot herself succeed to that monopoly. And unless one country has the monopoly
of the markets of the world at least in the decisive branches of trade, the
conditionsrelatively favourable-which existed here in England from 1848 to 1870 cannot
anywhere be reproduced, and even in America the condition of the working class must
gradually sink lower and lower. For if there are three countries (say, England, America
and Germany) competing on comparatively equal terms for the possession of the world
market, there is no chance but chronic overproduction, one of the three being capable of
supplying the whole quantity required.

To-day we are face to face with this situation. The position in America is reported as
follows:

The United States Commissioner for Labour Statistics recently stated that if 200 Out of
the 1,357 boot and shoe factories in the  country worked full time, they could
satisfy the whole existing demand, and the remaining 1,157 establishments could be closed
down. Similarly, 1,487 out of the 6,057 bituminous coal mines could produce all the coal
that was needed.

(H. B. Butler in the International Labour Review, March 1931.)

Between 1919 and 1927 factory output in the United States rose from 147 to 170, on the
basis of 1914 as 100, while the

38 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

employment index fell from 12 9 to I 15 (Times, March 8, ' Between 1919 and 1929 the
Federal Reserve Board index of industrial production (1923-5 as 100) rose from 84 to 119;
while the number of industrial wage workers fell from 9,039,000 to 8,742,000 (United
States Statistical Abstract, 1932). This absolute decline in employment was before the
collapse, during the great upward boom.

Britain reveals a similar picture. Between 1913 and 1928 the increase in output per
head of workers employed in thirty principal industries in Great Britain was 33 per cent.,
but the increase in employment was 2.2 per cent., or less than the increase in population
(Times Trade Supplement, July 23,1932). Still more marked is the process if the post-war
period is taken alone. Between 1923 and 1928 the number of insured workers in employment
fell from 8,368,000 to 7,898,000; the index of production (London and Cambridge Economic
Service, based on1913 as 100)rose from 88.7 to 96.3. Production rose 7.6 per cent.;
employment fell 5.6 per cent. And all this before the world economic crisis began to make
the heaviest effects of the process felt.

What is to happen to the "superfluous" workers? For long the old theory of
"alternative employment" was still endeavoured to be put forward as applicable
to this situation. The decline in the industrial productive workers was to be
"compensated" by the increase of auxiliary "services" and luxury
occupations (clerical, distributive, advertising, commercial, and luxury services).
Certainly, a very considerable increase in these auxiliary and in the main non-productive
occupations is to be traced in the United States, Britain and other countries during the
post-war period, thus providing the basis of the rapid expansion of the so-called
"new middle class," which became one of the breeding-grounds of Fascism; just as
the growth of the permanent unemployed army provided a further breeding-ground. The
expansion of the rentier class on the one side, and of luxury services and endlessly
multiplied salesmanship" services on the other, is a measure of the degeneration of
capitalism.  The capitalist mode of production, while on the one hand enforcing
economy in each individual business, on the other hand begets by its anarchical system of
competition the most outrageous squandering of labour power and of the social means of
production,

PRODUCTIVITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT 39

not to mention the creation of a vast number of employments at present indispensable,
but in themselves superfluous.

(Marx, Capital, I, p. 540.)

Nevertheless, this supposed "compensation" was soon revealed as a doubtful
solution. In the first place, it was manifestly no solution for the millions of miners and
heavy industry workers thrown out of work. In the second place, the extent of
"compensation" had obvious limits which were soon reached. For in these
occupations, too, rationalisation begins to get to work and to repeat the process of
throwing off the superfluous workers. Mechanisation transforms clerical work, and begins
increasingly to replace clerks by more and more elaborate calculating and book-keeping
machines; centralisation cuts down the number of competing businesses; staffs are reduced.
The "white-collar workers" also find themselves increasingly thrown on the
market alongside their industrial brothers.

Increasing doubts of the whole process and its outcome, as well as of the stock
explanations and solutions, found expression in an editorial of the London Times in 1930
on "American Unemployment" (characteristically endeavouring to treat the problem
as an "American" problem, but in fact describing equally unemployment in
Britain):

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that unemployment must henceforth be counted as
a permanent American (!) problem. To ascribe its occasional recurrence in an acute form to
some special event is no less delusive than to explain it as a merely "seasonal"
manifestation. . . . The experience of recent years has gone to prove that recovery is
less and less complete after each crisis, and to show that forces other than the seasonal
and the accidental are at work. There is little reason to doubt that permanent
unemployment is to-day the lot of an always growing number of American

men and women.

On this basis doubt is expressed of the whole system of "mass production,"
i.e., of capitalist large-scale production:

The advantages residing in a system which relies on the mass production of standardised
articles deserve more critical examination  than they have yet been given.

The current answers of "the apologists of the system," that the reduced costs
of production and therefore reduced price means

40 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

increased demand and consequent re-absorption of the unemployed, are "no longer
altogether convincing":

It is still doubtful whether the increased production can always be absorbed; it is a
very large question whether new industries are created quickly enough to employ the
displaced workers. In other words, it remains to be seen how perilously the machine has
run ahead of man, and whether some re-adjustment of social condition may not ultimately be
imperative. The question drives like rain to the roots of American (!) life. (Times
editorial, March 8, 1930.) Under the thin disguise of "America" it is obvious
that "the question drives like rain to the roots" of capitalism in all
countries, and not least in Britain, with its longest record of permanent mass
unemployment.

What prevents capitalism from carrying out the alternative solution universally
proposed by all the myriad schools of reformers of capitalism (reformist socialists,
social credit theorists, currency reformers, etc.)-i.e., the general raising of the
standards of the workers to a point compatible with the consumption of the increased
production alongside higher profits for the capitalists? The answer why capitalism is
unable to carry out this apparently simple solution, but is in fact actively engaged in
carrying out the opposite, lies in the whole character of capitalism. The reformist dream
of grafting on to the capitalist mode of production an entirely different and incompatible
system of distribution (whether by legislative means, raising wages, social services, a
"national dividend," or the like) only reveals its advocates' failure to
understand the elementary workings of capitalism and the necessary conditions of the
capitalist mode of production. The reformists apply in their fantasy the conceptions of an
organised society directly to the jungle of capitalism, which, by the very conditions of
private property and production for profit, cannot follow the principles of an organised
economy, but can only follow entirely different laws. In fact, even the very limited
measure of social reform which could be achieved, under the pressure of the working class,
in the conditions of ascending capitalism become increasingly circumscribed and even in
part diminished and withdrawn in the conditions of declining capitalism and of the
capitalist crisis.  The realities of capitalism are both in fact and in iron
necessity entirely different. The greater the crisis, the greater

PRODUCTIVITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT 41

becomes the need of the rival capitalist concerns to lower the costs of production, to
increase the rate of exploitation, to drive the dwindling number of employed workers
harder, to attack the workers' standards and the social services, in order to compete more
successfully for the dwindling market. At the same time the growth of unemployment
facilitates these attacks. The development of the crisis has been accompanied in every
country by successively renewed and intensified attacks on the workers' standards. The
authentic voice of capitalism is the voice of the American capitalist magnate, Owen D.
Young, the sponsor of the Young Plan, when he declared: "Let no man think that the
living standards of America can be permanently maintained at a measurably higher level
than those of the other civilised countries" (Economist, April 12, 1930.)

The Roosevelt "experiment," which has skilfully utilised the reformist
propaganda of higher standards as the solution of the capitalist crisis, but utilised it
in fact for the exactly opposite purpose to carry through intensified exploitation and
lowered standards (just as President Wilson of old utilised pacifist propaganda for the
purposes of war), is proving in practice, as we shall later have occasion to see, only a
more complete demonstration of this reality.

The growth of productivity has been accompanied, not by an increase of the workers'
share, but by a decrease of the workers' share. Between 1913 and 192 8 the percentages of
the national income going to wages fell in the United States from 36.4 to 36, and in the
United Kingdom from 42.7 to 40.9 (World Economic Survey, 1932-3, p.101). In the United
States, between 1921 and 1927, the value of the product of industry rose from 18.3
thousand million dollars to 27.5 thousand million dollars (U.S. Department of Commerce,
Census of Manufactures); but in the same period the percentages of the value of the
product of industry going to wages and salaries fell loom 58.7 per cent. in 1921 (54.2 per
cent. in 19'4) to 51 percent. in 1927 (P. H. Douglas, Real Wages in the United States). in
Great Britain, between 1924 and 1930, according to Colin

Clark's The National Income 1924-31, the output per person employed rose from 100 to
113, while the proportion of wages to home-produced income fell from 41.5 per cent. (42.5
percent  in 1911) to 38 per cent.

I 'The effect of the world economic crisis has been, not to

42 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

reverse this process, but to carry it enormously further forward. The drive to
rationalisation to speeding up, to extracting a still higher output per worker for less
return, has been intensified under the conditions of the crisis. Between 1929 and 1932 the
output per man- hour has actually been forced up by 12 per cent. in the United States,
alongside twelve million unemployed!

Labour costs per unit of output have been substantially reduced by an improvement in
productive efficiency. The output per manhour in the United States increased by about 12
per cent. between 1929 and 193 2 (Economist, May 5, 1933.)

It is obvious that the effect of this is still further to intensify the contradiction
which already led to the economic crisis.

In the face of these facts increasing doubts begin to assail the capitalists whether
there can ever be full-scale employment again, even if the extreme intensity of the crisis
of 1929-33 should give place to a considerable upward movement. Thus it is reported from
America:

American employment reached its highest point in 1918, American production in 1929, and
it is carefully and accurately computable to- day that if by some magic a return could be
made to the productive maximum of three years ago, there would still be no work for 45 per
cent. of the present twelve million unemployed. (Washington Correspondent of the London
Times, November 2, 1932.)

From Britain comes the same tale:

If the 21/2 millions of unemployed were absorbed in factory occupa. tions, the national
output of manufactured articles would be on such a scale that the available buying markets
. . . would be inadequate to absorb it. Hence, if such a method of labour absorption could
and did take place, it would only precipitate a new crisis.

(Times Trade Supplement, July 23, 1932.)

Such are the alternatives which begin to be seen by the I capitalists, even if the
present crisis should give place to the  most extensive upward movement. Either
continued mass unemployment of millions, even if

"by some magic" the record level of the previous production boom could be
attained.

Or, if all the unemployed are absorbed into productive

labour, then inevitably the immediate precipitation of a new crisis.

PRODUCTIVITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT 43

As this new situation begins to be realised, the beckoning phantom of a new world war
as the only "solution" to utilise the productive forces and wipe off the
"superfluous" population begins to exercise a visibly increasing attraction on
capitalist thought and policy as the final gamble.

Nearly a century ago Engels wrote of the necessary consequences of the inevitable
future breakdown of the British capitalist monopoly: "Should English manufactures be
thus vanquished . . . the majority of the proletariat must become forever superfluous and
has no other choice than to starve or to rebel." (Engels: Condition of the Working
Class in England in 1844, Ch. xi.)

In 1932, eighty-seven years later, the British Prime Minister spoke in the House of
Commons of the prospect, even if trade should recover and prosperity return, of having to
find "great bodies of men and women, perhaps even amounting to a couple of millions,
to be, to all intents and purposes, in our society, superfluous scrap." (J. R.
MacDonald in the House of Commons, November 2 2, 1932.)

In 1933 the leader of British Conservatism had to make the same melancholy admission:

There is the great core of unemployment. We do not know what the numbers may be. There
may be a million, a million and a half, or less than a million; but there will be a vast
number for whom there is but little hope of employment being found in this country. The
gates of migration are closed against us. What can we do? That is a problem that has
baffled the country completely up to now.

(Stanley Baldwin in the House of Commons, November 27, 1933.)

"What can we do?" This is the final answer of what was once the most powerful
capitalism in the world, when faced today with the problem of millions who seek only to
work and live.  There could be no sharper expression of the bankruptcy of capitalism
than when, in the midst of wealth and unexampled productive power, it can no longer even
find the means to exploit a growing proportion of its slaves, and is compelled to proclaim
millions of human beings, living, strong, and able and willing to labour, as
"superfluous scrap." The time draws close for the second half of the
alternative-"to rebel"-as the only solution for the extending millions of
producers cut off from production, no less than for the millions whose growing output is
accompanied by growing poverty.

44 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

4. The Alternative-Social Revolution or Destruction.

The alternatives which confront society at the present stage are thus clear.

Capital can no longer utilise the productive forces. Capital can no longer utilise the
full labour-power of the productive population. Monopoly capitalism is more and more
visibly choking the whole Organisation of production and exchange.

The working masses can no longer find even the former limited conditions of existence
within the conditions of capitalism. Increasing millions are thrown aside as
"superfluous." The standards of all are successively attacked. Intensification
of labour of the dwindling numbers employed is accompanied by worsening of standards.

The class struggle grows more intense. New forms of widening mass struggle develop. New
and intenser methods of repression and coercion are brought into play by the ruling class.

Against this situation the knowledge and understanding, which begins to grow more and
more widely spread, of the scientific and technical possibilities of unlimited production
and abundance for all, confronts existing society like a mockery and a torment: creating
on the one side, among a growing section of the dispossessed, revolutionary anger and
determination; creating on the other side, among the doomed possessing classes, growing
desperation and recklessness, the revolt against science, the revolt against mechanical
technique, and readiness to embark on ever more frenzied courses of violence and
destruction.

Two alternatives, and only two, confront existing society at the present stage of
development of the productive forces and of social organisation.  One is to throttle
the development of the productive forces in order to save class-society, to destroy
material wealth, to destroy millions of "superfluous" human beings in the slow
rot of starvation and the quick furnace of war, to crush down the working-class movement
with limitless violence, to arrest the development of science and culture and education
and technique, to revert to more primitive forms of limited, isolated societies, and thus
to save for a while the rule of the possessing classes at the expense of a return to
barbarism and spreading decay. This is the path which finds its most complete and
organised expression in Fascism.

THE ALTERNATIVE-REVOLUTION OR DESTRUCTION 45

The other is to organise the productive forces for the whole society by abolishing the
class ownership of the means of production, and building up the classless communist
society which can alone utilise and organise the modern productive forces. This is the
path of Communism, of the revolutionary working class.

The issue of these two paths is the issue of the present epoch.

It is to the former of these two alternatives that the existing capitalist world is
to-day moving at an increasing pace, and to which it will more and more visibly develop in
the period ahead, if the revolutionary working class does not succeed in time in saving
the whole future of civilisation and of human culture.

THE technical and economic situation described in the previous chapter finds its social
and political expression in the storms of the present epoch, in the world war, in the
revolutionary struggles, in the world economic crisis, in the advance to renewed world war
and in Fascism.

The objective conditions for the social revolution were ripe already from the beginning
of the period of imperialism, and more particularly since the opening of the general
crisis of capitalism in  1914.

But the living human factor was not yet ready. The minds of men were still dominated by
the conceptions of the past epoch. The bursting of the contradictions in the world war and
after broke on the majority of men like a natural catastrophe. The first aim was widely
proclaimed on all sides to resume the broken thread of pre-war continuity.

The proletariat in the leading capitalist countries, although advancing to social
revolution, was not yet strong enough, not conscious enough, not organized enough, to
overthrow the rule of the capitalist class. The revolts of the proletariat after the war,
although drawing close to success and profoundly transforming the political situation,
were finally defeated in all countries outside Russia.

The capitalist class, having overcome the immediate menace to its rule, set itself the
aim to restore the shaken mechanism of capitalist production and exchange, to return to
"pre-war,, or "normalcy."

The proletariat, following the leadership of Social Democracy, after the defeat of the
revolution, sought to win improved conditions within the capitalist restoration.

On this basis was built up the capitalist restoration or temporary
"stabilisation" of 1923-9. The illusory character of this basis, which sought to
resurrect the vanished conditions of the old pre- war capitalism, was not at first
realised by any save the Marxists.

46

THE LAST ATTEMPT TO RESTORE PRE-WAR CAPITALISM 47

Only when a new cycle of capitalism on this basis had resulted with extreme speed in a
more intense crisis than ever before, shattering one by one all the pillars of
"stabilisation," did the recognition begin to become universal on all sides that
the old conditions were passed beyond resurrection, and that fundamental issues of social,
economic and political Organisation would have to be faced.

From this point stabilisation ends, and a transformation begins to develop in the whole
of capitalist policy and in the consciousness of the proletariat. Social Democracy, which
had shared in the boom of capitalist restoration, goes through a series of inner crises,
and weakens before Communism. Fascism which had previously developed only in an
experimental stage in a secondary capitalist  country, now comes to the front as a
world factor, dominating directly a major capitalist country, as well as in greater or
less degree a whole series of other countries, and revealing itself as the most typical
expression of modern capitalist policy.

1. The Last Attempt to Restore Pre-war Capitalism.

The basis of the attempted capitalist restoration after the war was the defeat of the
proletarian revolution outside Russia.

To this objective the principal concentration of world capitalist policy was directed
in the period immediately after the war. This primary preoccupation was true, not only of
the governments of Central Europe, where the revolution came closest to victory, but above
all of the governments which held the world leadership of capitalism, of Britain, France
and the United States. Thus Hoover declared in 192 1

The whole of American policies during the liquidation of the Armistice was to
contribute everything it could to prevent Europe from going Bolshevik or being overrun by
their armies.

(Hoover, letter to 0. Garrison Villard, 1921, reprinted in the New York Nation,
December 28, 1932.)

In the same way, for Britain, Sir William Goode, British Director of Relief in Central
Europe, wrote on "European Reconstruction" in 1925, quoting from his official
report in

1920:

Food was practically the only basis on which the Governments of the hastily created
States could be maintained in power. . . . Half

48 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

of Europe had hovered on the brink of Bolshevism. If it had not been for the 1'37
million in relief credits granted to Central and Eastern Europe between 1919 and 1921, it
would have been imposisible to provide food and coal and the sea and land transport for
them. Without food and coal and transport, Austria and probably several other countries
would have gone the way of Russia. . . . Two and a half years after the Armistice the back
of Bolshevism in Central Europe had been broken, largely by relief credits. . . . The
expenditure of L137 million was probably one of the best international investments from a
financial and political point of view ever recorded in history.

(Sir William Goode, Times, October 14, 192 5.)  Subsequently, the Dawes Plan,
Locarno and the flow of American credits and loans to Europe carried forward the same
process of capitalist restoration at a higher stage.

What was the basis of the defeat of the proletarian revolution and the rebuilding of
capitalism in the years immediately following the war? Fascism at this time did not exist
as a factor save in Italy. The main weapons of capitalism were threefold.

The first was direct civil war and counter-revolution-the wars of intervention against
Russia, the White Terror in Finland, Hungary, Poland, etc., the military aid to Poland in
1920, the permission of the counter-revolutionary military organisations, officers' corps,
Orgesch, etc., in Germany (which helped to build up the basis of the subsequent Fascism in
Germany), and the like. This was of decisive importance at the immediate critical points
of struggle, but it could not provide the main basis, as it had no mass support and could
only build on the narrow ranks of the ex-officers and direct reactionary classes; the
failure of the Kapp Putsch demonstrated this weakness. It was only later that Fascism was
to find the way towards a temporary solution of the problem of the combination of
counter-revolution with winning a wide measure of mass support.

The second weapon was Social Democracy and the granting of temporary concessions to the
workers. Social Democracy because of its mass basis, was the main weapon of capitalism in
the years immediately after the war for the rebuilding of capitalism. The advance of the
workers to the struggle for power, the immediate onrush of which after the war was too
powerful to be successfully defeated in direct battle, was circumvented by a strategical
ruse-the placing of Social

THE LAST ATTEMPT TO RESTORE PRE-WAR CAPITALISM 49

Democratic governments, presidents and ministers in office, thus appearing to surrender
to the workers the seats of power, while the realities of power remained with capitalism.
Only in this way, by the alliance with Social Democracy, by hiding capitalism under a
Social Democratic front, was the capitalist state saved after the war. Social Democracy
united with capitalism to defeat the workers' revolution. A great show of concessions to
the workers was made; promises were lavishly broadcast; Socialisation Commissions,
Nationalisation Commissions, Sankey Commissions were set up; wages were increased and
hours shortened.*

Subsequently, as soon as the power of capitalism was thus successfully re-established,
a reverse action took place. The concessions were withdrawn; inflation wiped them out in
the  European countries; the capitalist offensive drove back the workers even below
pre-war levels; the Social Democrats, while still occasionally used as governments, were
increasingly relegated to the role of "opposition." At the same time, the
consequent growth of disillusionment of the workers with the whole process and with Social
Democracy led to the necessity of capitalism discovering a further basis of power, and the
development of Fascism as the parallel instrument of capitalism alongside Social
Democracy. But this development only took place on a wider scale as the stabilisation
began to break down in the world economic crisis.

The third weapon of capitalism in the re-establishment of its power and of its economic
system was the drawing on the colossal reserves of the still unshaken centre of world
capitalism -American capitalism. American loans and credits poured into Europe to bolster
up and rebuild the shaken fabric of European capitalism. On this basis the restoration of
the gold

*The character of this period was revealingly described, with reference to the

Sankey Coal Commission, by Evan Williams, President of the Mining Association, in his
evidence before the Mining Court of Inquiry in 1924:

"It was an atmosphere charged with the emotions of the time in which the
Commission sat. There were fears throughout the whole country as to what might happen, and
it was felt that the miners' position ought to be met in order to maintain peace. That was
the atmosphere of the Commission. The atmos- phere was an unreal one altogether, and
conclusions were arrived at without any real foundation. Two of my colleagues, mineowners
and myself," went on Mr. Williams, with 9. smile, "actually signed a report
which recommended a reduc- tion in the hours of work in mines." (Daily Herald report,
April 26, 1924.) The "smile" is the comment of capitalism on its own ruse, after
the ruse has succeeded.

50 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

standard took place. The triumph of stabilisation was celebrated by the bankers of the
world. It was obvious that this basis was a false one, and would involve a boomerang
outcome, as was predicted at the time by Marxists.*

On this basis was built the restoration of capitalism after the war, and subsequent
upward movement and boom of 192 7-9.  It is evident to all to-day that this basis of
stabilisation was a hollow and rotten one.

In the first place, the direct counter-revolutionary fighting Organisation was still
built on the narrow circle of privileged strata and their immediate range of influence,
and bad no wider mass basis. The masses were still only reached by Social Democracy or
Communism.

Second, the weapon of Social Democracy was more and more blunted by each successive
use. Widespread disillusionment grew with the failure of Social Democracy, not only to
lead any fight for socialism, but even to fight to maintain existing conditions or defend
the daily interests of the workers. The more and more desperate use of ever extending
disciplinary and coercive measures by the Social Democratic leadership to maintain their
power could not check this growing discontent. In the European countries as a whole during
this period the vote of Social Democracy declined, and that of Communism increased.

Third, the American Colossus, on whose support and subsidies the restoration of
capitalism was built up, was a colossus with feet of clay. As rapid as was its expansion
and apparent prosperity and power in the war and post-war period, no less rapid was the
bursting of the contradictions of its capitalist structure into a more gigantic economic
crisis than any previously experienced in any country of capitalism. But just as American
capitalism had provided the economic base for the

* See, for example, the Labour Monthly for February 1925, on "The Restoration of
Europe," and for March 1025, on "The Gold Standard," where it was predicted
that, as soon as the flow of new loans and credits should begin to dry up, and be exceeded
by the necessary return movement of interest and amortisation, requiring an enormous
expansion of European exports in the overcrowded world market, this would necessarily
precipitate a new crisis, leading to the shattering of the gold standard. To-day this
analysis, made in 1925, and fully realised six years later, provides an instructive
comparison of the effectiveness of the Marxist line in contrast to the complacent
contemporary statements during that period of all the leaders and professorial experts of
capitalism on the success of stabilisation and of the return to the gold standard.



THE LAST ATTEMPT TO RESTORE PRE-WAR CAPITALISM 51

rebuilding of capitalism throughout the world, so the American crash brought with it
the crash of the whole structure of stabilisation throughout the world.

Fourth, the very success for the moment of stabilisation of rationalisation, of the
enormous expansion of the productive structure, brought with it the intensification of all
the problems and conflicts of capitalism, and only resulted in the more rapid and complete
shipwreck. The gigantic productive mechanism required a no less gigantic expansion of the
market; unless it could maintain its mass output at full working, its very much heavier
maintenance costs made it actually less economical than more primitive technical forms.

The presuppositions of the attempted restoration and stabilisation of capitalism after
the war had been the return to the conditions of pre- war capitalism (which had in reality
already been undergoing far- reaching modifications and transformations already before the
war), to the free market regulation of supply and demand, to the automatic gold standard,
etc. But in fact monopoly capitalism had already before the war transformed these
conditions of classic capitalism beyond recognition, and led to the growing disequilibrium
which found expression in the war. After the war, monopoly capitalism was enormously
further developed, not only in the scale of the trusts and in the concentration of the
financial oligarchies, but in the ever closer unification of the financial oligarchies and
the State machine, in the growing State economic intervention and control, in the
utilisation of direct political means for economic ends (reparations, debts, loan
policies, colonial policies), and the rising network of tariffs, subsidies, quotas,
licenses, and all forms of restrictions to maintain the closed monopolist areas. The whole
resulting structure was top- heavy. The crash was inevitable. Capitalism under these
conditions was more and more revealing itself, no longer as a "working system,"
but as a clogging fetter on production and exchange, with vast concentrations of
conflicting and irresponsible power at strategic points, which could rock the whole
system.

When the crash came with the world economic crisis, the conditions of monopoly
capitalism still further prevented the "normal" working out of the crisis, and
intensified and prolonged the crisis. The great capitalist monopolies were able to
maintain relatively high profits in the midst of the depression,

52 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION  by artificial measures of restriction, by
maintaining monopoly prices above the general price-level, and by passing on the burden of
the depression to the working masses, to the petitbourgeoisie and to the colonial peoples.
The prices of cartellised goods in Germany in the beginning of 1933 had only fallen 2 0
per cent. below the level of the first half of 19 2 9, whereas the price of non-
cartellised goods had fallen 55 per cent. (League of Nations World Production and Prices,
p. 109). The prices of manufactured goods in the imperialist countries were maintained
above the pre- war level, at the same time as the prices of the raw-material products of
the colonial peoples were depressed to an average of half the pre-war level. But this
meant to intensify the contradictions at the root of the crisis. In this way the workings
of monopoly capitalism hindered the "normal" solution of the crisis after the
methods of "healthy" capitalism.

Thus it became more and more evident, both from the circumstances leading to the
crisis, and from the further development of the crisis, that the "restoration of
capitalism" of the pre-war type was no longer possible; that its breakdown was not
due to any particular, isolated, accidental causes (reparations, debts, gold supply and
distribution, etc., as was at first suggested), but was inherent in the whole nature of
the attempt in relation to modern conditions of production and economic Organisation; and
that in fact, as began to become increasingly recognised in informed capitalist quarters,
the whole attempt at "restoration" during the nineteen-twenties had been in
reality a chase after an illusion.

As the recognition of this begins to spread within the capitalist world, the conscious
direction of capitalist policy begins to change more and more openly-the decisive point of
change from the old to the new may be marked in 1933 with the advent of Roosevelt in the
United States, with the advent of Hitler in Germany, and with the breakdown of the World
Economic Conference-and moves to new types of policy in accordance with the changed
conditions, and to corresponding new types of economic and political Organisation.

2. The Collapse of the Illusions of the Stabilisation Period.

The short-lived "stabilisation" and upward movement of capitalism in the
nineteen-twenties gave rise to a host of myths

COLLAPSE OF THE ILLUSIONS 53

and illusions as to the possibilities of permanent capitalist  prosperity, of a
new era of harmonious capitalist advance, of "organised capitalism," of
"super-capitalism," of improving standards for all without the need of class
struggle or revolution.

These illusions were important at the time as the means by which capitalism sought to
maintain its hold on the masses and to counter the issue of the social revolution, which
concretely confronted the world since 1917.

The collapse of these illusions with the world economic crisis was of decisive
importance in the development of capitalist ideology to Fascism.

The main forms taken by these illusions were twofold, both closely connected.

The first was the myth of American Capitalism as a new type of capitalism, which had
overcome the contradictions and crises of the old capitalism, which had "ironed out
the trade cycle," and found the key to permanent prosperity and the abolition of
poverty through continuously rising standards of the workers alongside continuously rising
profits. American Capitalism was held out as the triumphant refutation of Communism.
"Ford versus Marx" was the common popularisation of this theme.

The second, closely connected with the first, was the conception of "Organised
Capitalism" as the new type of capitalism developing throughout the world, and
building up under capitalist leadership a rational productive world order, which would
eliminate the evils, poverty and discords of the old nineteenth- century capitalism and
replace them by unparallelled universal prosperity. This conception found its final
expression in "Ultra- Imperialism," or the conception that capitalist
development was working towards a unified world capitalist order, eliminating war and the
divisions of imperialism under the beneficent and pacific control of international
finance.

There is no doubt that these illusions were to some extent shared by a portion of the
leaders of capitalism during this period, who were dazzled by the apparent rapid recovery
from the war and the unparallelled advance in production, trade and profits, and looked
forward to a period of ever-growing prosperity. Thus President Hoover declared on July 2
7, 192 8: "The outlook of the world to-day is for the greatest era of commercial
expansion in history." And again, on August II,

54 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION  1928, in a speech accepting the Republican
renomination for President:

Unemployment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing. We in America to-day are
nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The
poorhouse is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal, but given a chance
to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with the help
of God be within sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.

(New York Nation, June 15, 1932.)

Similarly Keynes in 1925, addressing the Liberal Summer School under the title,
"Am I a Liberal?" distinguished three periods of economic development: the
first, of scarcity, up to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries; the second of abundance,
represented by the nineteenth century; and the third, of it stabilisation," now
opening:

But we are now entering on a third era, which Professor Commons calls the period of
stabilisation, and truly characterises as "the actual alternative to Marx's
Communis(Keynes Am I a Liberal? 1925, reprinted in Essays in Persuasion, 1931.)

The principal channel of these illusions throughout Western Europe and America was
Social Democracy. Through Social Democracy these illusions were transmitted to the masses.
The "American Model" and "Ford versus Marx" became the battle-cry of
Social Democracy and the Second International in the fight against Communism.
Government-paid missions of abour leaders were sent from Britain, Germany and other
countries to the United States to bring back the new gospel from the Holy Land of
Capitalism. It is unnecessary now to repeat (although it would be profitable for those who
come newly to these questions to study this record of capitalist and social democratic
illusion and ignorance on the basic questions of our epoch) the more fantastic utterances
of all the principal Labour Party, trade union and social democratic leaders and theorists
on the American Miracle and the triumph of capitalism over Marxism.*

* Reference may be made to the present writer's Socialism and the Living Wage,
published in 1927, for a collection of some of the typical British Labour expressions -
Labour Party, trade union and Independent Labour Party-in adoration of the American
Mammon, Fordism, the New Capitalist Era, Rationalisation, etc. It may be noted that Labour
Press reviews of this book, which in 1927 exposed the clay feet and impending crash of the
American Colossus, rejected its reasoning on the grounds that it was based on the
"obsolete" theories of Marxism, which only had reference to nineteenth-century
capitalism and were refuted by modern capitalism, as demonstrated in America. 

COLLAPSE OF THE ILLUSIONS 55

What is important is that capitalism in this period, through Social Democracy, was able
to build up a powerful propaganda in the working class of expectation of a new capitalist
era, of rising prosperity, of the unshakable strength of capitalism, and of the refutation
of revolutionary Marxism. The entire machine of reformist socialism, in control of the
working class organisations, spread this propaganda.

Thus Snowden on behalf of the Labour Party declared:

He did not agree with the statement of some of their socialist friends that the
capitalist system was obviously breaking down. He believed that we were to-day in a
position very much like the industrial revolution that took place about 120 years ago.
Then the steam age was ushered in.

Now we are entering in, I believe, the new age of electricity and an age of chemistry.
Wide-awake capitalists are seeing this, and they are taking steps to appropriate for
private profit and private ownership the exploitation of these great forces. If they
succeed in doing that, then the capitalist system will be given a new and long and more
powerful lease of life.

(Snowden, Daily Herald report, April 17, 1926.) Citrine, on behalf of the Trades Union
Congress, defending the policy of "Mondism" or alliance with capitalism,
explained that the policy of co-operation with the employers

aims at using the organised powers of the workers to promote effective co-operation in
developing more effective less wasteful methods of production, eliminating unnecessary
friction and unavoidable conflict in order to increase the wealth produced and provide a
steady rising standard of social life and continuously improving conditions of employment
for the workers.

(Citrine, in the Labour Magazine, October 1927.) In this way the expectation of "a
new and long and more powerful lease of life" of capitalism, and of "a steady
rising standard of social life and continuously improving conditions of employment for the
workers" within capitalism was preached by Social Democracy.

Similarly the theorist of German trade unionism, Tarnov, wrote that Marxism was now
refuted by modern capitalism:

We must distinguish two epochs in the development of capitalism; 

56 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the epoch of British capitalism, which was limited in its possibilities of expansion,
and the epoch of American capitalism, which on the basis of the latest technical advances
can unendingly expand and develop.

For the first epoch, Marx and Lassalle were typical. They maintained that wages are
determined by certain economic laws, that they depend on the cost of labour-power, etc.
For the second epoch, Ford is typical. He proved that capitalism can prosper, while the
worker need not at the same time remain poor.

Along the same lines another leading theorist of German trade unionism, Naphthali,
wrote:

Cyclical development, under which there was a regular succession of prosperity and
crisis, of which Marx and Engels wrote, applies to the period of early capitalism.

A younger theorist of the Labour Party wrote in a book appearing as late as 193 1:

There are grounds for thinking that the situation is changing for the good. The wave of
world revolution, on which the advance of Communism is depending, has subsided. Capitalism
has been suc- cessful up to a point in stabilising itself-though at the price of admitting
into its structure socialist elements which will ultimately supersede it. . . . There is a
good deal in the classic Communist pic- ture of a world in the grip of ineluctable
conflict that is out of date. (A. L. Rowse, Politics and the Younger Generation, 1931, P.
294.)

This writer argued further that the most modern capitalist monopolies were showing an
enlightened and benevolent tendency of scientific world Organisation which held out the
prospect of an ultimate "synthesis of common aims" with socialism. Unfortunately
for the writer, he chose as his example of this progressive tendency of modern monopolist
capitalism and potential ally with socialism- Kreuger.

It is noteworthy that one of the greatest and most progressive of modern finance
corporations, the Swedish Kreuger and Toll Co., in a brilliant review of world conditions
comes to conclusions not dissimilar. (A quotation from their report follows):

When a great capitalist concern speaks in these terms, one seems to  see a
glimpse of the future in which the existing conflict between socialism and it is resolved
in a synthesis of common aims.

(Ibid., pp. 46-7.)

The Preface of this book was dated 29 July, 1931. The collapse

AFTER TM COLLAPSE

and exposure of Kreuger and his swindles took place within eight months. This writer
for the "younger generation" was belated in his repetition of social democratic
propaganda of a preceding period, which had already reached its climax and completed its
main currency in 19 2 7-9.

What was the effect of this dominant line of propaganda and policy of Social Democracy
during the short-lived boom period of post-war capitalism?

First, it completely concealed the real character of post-war capitalism, the real
issues of the period, and the real struggle confronting them, for the working class. Thus
the workers were left confused and unprepared for the gigantic issues which faced them,
and which the crisis laid bare.

Second, the subsequent collapse of all these theories and of the entire line of
leadership with the advent of the world economic crisis produced a tremendous
disillusionment throughout the petit- bourgeoisie and the working class who had followed
the promises of Social Democracy. All the hopes which had been built up collapsed.

Thus the path was laid open for the advance of Fascism in the petit-bourgeoisie and in
certain strata of the working class.

3. After the Collapse.

At first the full extent of the collapse involved in the world economic crisis was not
understood by the leaders of capitalism. It was attempted at first to regard the crash of
the autumn of 1929 as a crisis of speculation on the American Stock Exchange, unrelated to
the general economic situation.

On 29 October, 1929, President Hoover affirmed that "the fundamental business of
the country is on a sound and prosperous basis," The Assistant Secretary of Commerce,
Dr. Klein, explained that "a decline in security prices does not greatly affect the
buying power of the community . . . the industrial and  commercial structure of the
nation is sound." On November 24 Dr. Klein stated that American business was

"healthy and vigorous and promises to be more so." On December 3 Hoover
announced: "We have re-established confidence. . . . A very large degree of
unemployment which would otherwise have occurred has been prevented." On January 1,
1930, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mellon, prophesied: "I have every confidence
that there will be a revival

58 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

of activity in the spring." On January 10 Dr. Klein prophesied: "I believe
that the turn will come about March or April." On March 8 Hoover prophesied that the
crisis would be over in sixty days. On May 19, the Secretary of State, Lamont, prophesied
that "normal conditions should be restored in two or three months." On May 1,
193o, Hoover announced: "We have now passed the worst."

And so on, continuously, right into 1932. A similar list could be compiled for the
Labour Government and National Government in Britain.

As late as 1930 appeared the well-known report of the Hoover Committee on "Recent
Economic Changes," still celebrating the American Miracle and the "economic
balance" achieved and concluding: "Our situation is fortunate, our momentum is
remarkable." And indeed had not all the professors proved that the
"prosperity" must be permanent? Thus Professor Carver, of Harvard, answering the
question "How long will this diffusion of prosperity last?" replied:

There is absolutely no reason why the widely diffused prosperity which we are now
witnessing should not permanently increase.

(Professor N. Carver, This Economic World, 1928, P. 396.)

Similarly another of the professors of economics had declared:

There is no fundamental defect in the organisation of the industrial system which would
prevent business enterprises being operated constantly at a profit. Under the present
industrial system, it is not only desirable to have, and to maintain constantly, profits,
industrial progress and prosperity, but it is possible to attain this goal.

(Professor A. B. Adams, Progress, Profits and Prosperity, 19 2 7

Very different was the tone of President Hoover's next Research Committee into Modem
Trends, which reported in the end of 1932,  and found that:

In the best years millions of families are limited to meagre living. Unless there is a
speeding up of social inventions or a slowing down of mechanical invention, grave
mal-adjustments are certain.

The American standard of living for the near future must decline because of lower wages
caused by unemployment.

As the deeper and more lasting character of the crisis began to be recognised, the
attempt began to be made to seek for some specific major cause, such as reparations and
debts, the gold supply, tariffs, etc. These questions came to the front, as

AFTER THE COLLAPSE 59

the intensity of the crisis began to centre in Europe in 1931, with the Austrian bank
crash and the inability of German debts payments. In the summer of 1931 the Hoover
Moratorium postponed all reparations and debt payments for one year. This did not prevent
the collapse of the pound sterling in the autumn. In the summer of the following year the
Lausanne settlement ended reparations.

With the collapse of the Dawes and Young Plans, and with the collapse of the gold
standard in Britain and other countries, the two main pillars of the stabilisation period
bad fallen.

But the ending of reparations and debts payments did not mitigate the crisis. On the
contrary, it grew more intense in 1932, thus demonstrating that there were deeper factors
at work. A panic tone now began to pervade capitalist expression in 1932. Already by the
end of 1931 the economist, Sir George Paish, bad prophesied that "nothing can prevent
a complete breakdown within the next two months" (Manchester Guardian, December 10,
1931). In May 1932, the Conservative politician, L. S. Amery, prophesied: "We are
likely to have a complete collapse in Europe within the next few months" (Times, May
28, 1932). In the same month Lloyd George declared at Llandudno: "Without some action
international trade would collapse, and there would be famine in the midst of plenty.
Russia with vast resources and a population schooled to hardship, might escape; but Europe
was on the way to perish" (Manchester Guardian Weekly, May 27, 1932). In October
1932, the Governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman, made his famous declaration
that "the difficulties are so vast, the forces are so unlimited, precedents are so
lacking, that I approach the whole subject in ignorance and in humility. It is too great
for me. . . . I will admit that for the moment the way, to me, is not clear" (Times,
October 21, 1932). And his possibly apocryphal alleged  declaration to the Governor
of the Bank of France was widely reported in the Press to have prophesied collapse of the
capitalist system within twelve months.

The expectations of the bourgeoisie, in their moment of panic, of a sudden automatic
collapse of capitalism were no more correctly founded than their previous expectations of
a rapid automatic recovery. However unlimited the destruction that capitalism in decay and
in crisis can cause, its final collapse can only take place through the action of the
proletariat in

60 FASCISM AND SOCIA REVOLUTION

overthrowing it. But in these expressions of the bourgeoisie we can see the ideological
reflection of the end of stabilisation, and the preparation of the ground for the
transition to the desperate measures of Fascism.

The subsequent upward movement of 1933 and 1934, although limited, revived new hopes of
"recovery." But in fact the deeper changes and problems only became more sharply
laid bare by the peculiar character of this limited upward movement. The crisis had passed
from the lowest point of 1932 to the phase of depression which should normally mark the
transition to a new cycle and advance to a new boom. In fact, however, the development of
this upward movement on the basis of the general crisis of capitalism enormously
complicated the process and produced a situation without parallel in the old
"normal" capitalism. The limited upward movement of production, and more rapid
upward movement of profits, still left a heavy proportion of the means of production
unused, still left mass unemployment in 0 the leading countries, and was not accompanied
by any corresponding upward movement of world trade; the dislocation of international
trade, currency and credit relations continued in even intensified forms, with increasing
State regulatory measures, discriminations and trade war; the economy of each imperialist
Power was transformed more and more towards a type of war basis. In this situation the
"limits of recovery" became widely recognised also by the leaders and spokesmen
of the bourgeoisie; all the contradictions of capitalism, both within each country and
internationally, were laid bare as sharpened and not diminished in the new stage, which
began to reveal itself more and more, not as the herald of the transition to economic
recovery, but as the herald of the transition to new tension and war.

Already in the third and fourth years of the crisis, that is, as it had approached its
lowest point, and as all the attempted remedies and hopes of recovery had proved
deceptive, attention had begun  to be increasingly concerned on the deeper issues of
the whole advance of technique and its obvious outstripping of the existing forms of
social Organisation. The expression "technological unemployment" had found
increasing currency during this period as a seemingly scientific explanation which could
be used to account for everything without raising the

AFTER THE COLLAPSE 61

sharp problem of property relations. Typical of this period was the short-lived episode
of "technocracy," which was boomed throughout the world capitalist Press during
the last quarter of 1932 and the beginning of 1933. The advocates of
"technocracy" (whose leaders were in reality former camp-followers of the labour
movement and had drawn such inspiration as they had from incompletely digested crumbs from
the table of Marxism) brought a wealth of evidence to show the advance of productive power
and its conflict with existing social forms. But they drew therefrom the incorrect
conclusion that the problem is consequently a technical problem, to be solved under the
expert guidance of technicians through new utopian forms of commodity valuation (a la
Proudhon) within existing property society. Thus, while their evidence of the conflict of
the advance of technique with existing society was based on familiar and in the main
indisputable facts, they remained economically and politically at sea. They failed to
understand that the social Organisation of technique is incompatible with the capitalist
class monopoly in the means of production, and that consequently the basic problem of the
present period is not a technical problem, but a political problem-the breaking of the
capitalist class monopoly by the power of the working class

The minds and thoughts of the leaders of capitalism, as the development of the crisis
was making increasingly clear the basic contradictions confronting them and the basic
conflict between the advance of technique and the maintenance of classsociety, were moving
in a different direction. They were drawing with increasing clearness and consciousness
the necessary conclusions for the maintenance of class-society and the restriction of the
advance of technique. The old conceptions of the "restoration" of capitalism of
the pre-war pattern, of "international capitalism," of all the traditional
theories of the older schools of capitalist economists, who wrung their hands at the new
developments, were becoming more and more clearly and consciously abandoned. In their
place came to the front the conceptions of so-called "national planning," of the
closed monopolist area, of state economic control, of the restriction of production, of
the building of rigidly controlled, confined, static class-societies with suppression of
the class  struggle, and of war as an inevitable near necessity.

A WELL-KNOWN statement of Lenin in 1920 with reference to the post- war crisis gave
warning against the illusion that there is "absolutely no way out" for
capitalism; on the contrary, "there are no absolutely hopeless situations."

The meaning of this statement is often misunderstood, because it is commonly quoted out
of its context. Lenin was in fact giving warning against "two widespread
errors": first, the error of the "bourgeois economists," who fail to see
the basic character of the crisis and regard it as a temporary "unsettlement";
and second, the error of the passive revolutionists, who expect an automatic collapse of
capitalism. Against the latter he pointed out that the "proof" of the collapse
of capitalism can only be, not any abstract logical demonstration, but the successful
action of the proletariat in overthrowing it. Until then, capitalism remains in power,
drags on somehow, finds its own "way out" each time, no matter what disturbances
it passes through. In other words, capitalism does not escape from the general crisis into
which it has fallen since 1914, and which is inevitable in the present stage of conflict
between the forces of production and the existing relations of capitalist property
ownership; it only passes from one stage of crisis to another; there is no question of a
temporary "unsettlement." But capitalism does not finally fall until the
proletariat overthrows ft. This is the dialectic of the general crisis of capitalism which
Lenin was concerned to demonstrate,

The subsequent fourteen years have abundantly confirmed the truth of this analysis. On
the one hand, so long as the proletariat is not ready and strong enough, capitalism
remains in power; on the other hand, capitalism does not recover from its mortal sickness.
It passes from one stage of crisis only to fall into a new stage. At each stage, if the
proletariat is not yet ready to deal the death-blow, there remains a capitalist "way
out" which prevails. But the capitalist "way out" is no

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES 63

harmonious solution, no simple restoration of order to a temporary " 
unsettlement." The capitalist " way out " is at each stage a way of
increasing destruction, of mass-starvation, of violence, of war, of decay. This is the
lesson of the two decades since the outbreak of the war. And this is the character of the
present stage of the economics and politics of capitalism resulting from the world
economic crisis, and carrying to an extreme point the whole development of imperialist
decay.

Destruction in place of construction; restricted production in place of increased
production; closed "national" (i.e., imperialist) economic blocs in place of the
formal objective of international interdependence; social and political repression in
place of liberalism- these are the characteristic watchwords of capitalism in the present
period.

I. The Destruction of the Productive Forces.

The most direct, elementary and typical expression of the present stage of capitalist
policy is the organised collective destruction of wealth and of the productive forces.

The purposeful destruction of commodities for economic reasons is in itself nothing new
in capitalism, but an integral part of its daily working from the beginning. It was in
1799 that Fourier first became convinced of the necessity of a new form of social
Organisation when be found himself entrusted with the task at Marseilles to superintend
the destruction of a quantity of rice held for higher prices during a scarcity of food
till it had become unfit for use. Nevertheless, this rice had at any rate been held back
in the hope of sale, and was only destroyed because it had become unfit for use. This was
not yet the modern principle of the wholesale destruction of good rice, good wheat, good
cotton, good coffee and good meat.

In the same way the endeavour by combination to limit stocks, restrict production, and
maintain or raise prices is inherent, not merely in capitalism, but in commodity economy
from the beginning. As Adam Smith wrote in his Wealth of Nations:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but
the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise
prices.

(Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 10, Part ii.)

64 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

But such a policy appeared to Adam Smith, the original voice of classic 
capitalism, as an offence against the principles of capitalist production, as "a
conspiracy against the public." It has remained for our day that all the capitalist
governments of the world should meet together in the World Economic Conference to
proclaim, with the combined voice of all the most enlightened, progressive statesmen and
all the economists, the supreme aim to restrict production and to raise prices. This is a
measure of the extreme stage of decay of capitalism.

The distinctive modern stage of capitalist policy for the destruction of wealth and of
the productive forces is marked by three outstanding characteristics.

The first is the gigantic scale of destruction, conducted over entire principal world
areas of production, and calculated in relation to world stocks.

The second is the direct government Organisation and subsiding of such destruction and
restriction of production by all the leading imperialist governments.

The third is the extension of destruction, not only to the destruction of existing
stocks of commodities, but to the destruction of the productive forces, the ploughing up
of crops and sown areas, the artificial limitation of production, the dismantling of
machinery, as well as holding unused the labour power of millions of workers.

The examples of this process throughout the capitalist world are too familiar to
require repetition. The burning of millions of bags of coff ee or tons of grain, in the
midst of mass starvation and poverty, have horrified the world. But all this has been no
accidental or exceptional happening through the action of individuals, but on the contrary
directly organised by all the capitalist governments of the world, and in the forefront by
the most "progressive" governments, by the Roosevelt Government in the United
States, by Social Democratic governments, etc.

It is a tragic irony that men and women in New York should be suffering the tortures of
hunger while tens of thousands of pigs in farrow are being slaughtered in Iowa by the
command of the Government, and farmers in Kansas or Nebraska are burning their grain.
(News-Chronicle, October 17, 1933.)

The expenditures account recently published of the Agricultural Adjustment
Administration under the Roosevelt regime

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES 65

affords a pretty picture of modern capitalism (Economist, December  30, 1933):

This inspiring combination of Mammon and juggernaut, let it be remembered, is the
worshipped idol of the Labour Party and of the Trades Union Congress, as proclaimed at
their meetings at Hastings and Brighton in 1933.

From Denmark it was reported in November 1933 that cattle were being slaughtered in the
Government abattoirs at the rate of 5,000 a week, for the carcasses to be burnt in the
incinerators. The Government established a special destruction fund; but so great was the
cost of destruction that Parliament had to be approached for further credits for the
construction of new slaughter houses. This was under a Social Democratic Government.

In the same way the British Labour Government had already carried the Coal Mines Act
for the limitation of the output of coal-with such success that in the beginning of 1934 a
London firm actually ordered a consignment of coal from abroad, on the grounds, as they
stated, that owing to the limitation schemes it was impossible to secure a delivery from
British sources with sufficient speed.

In Britain in 1930 the company "National Shipbuilders Security, Limited" was
formed, with power to borrow up to three million pounds, for the purpose (according to the
Memorandum of Association) "to assist the shipbuilding industry by the purchase of
redundant and/or obsolete shipyards, the dismantling and disposal of their contents, and
the re-sale of their sites under restrictions against further use for shipbuilding."
Within a few months its successful activities were reported in the Press:

National Shipbuilders Security, Limited, has purchased Dalmuir Shipbuilding Yard, owned
by William Beardmore and Co., and in

66 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

consequence it is to be closed down by the end of the year. This shipyard was one of
the largest on the Clyde, employing six thousand  men during the war. Negotiations
for the purchase and closing down of other shipyards are in progress.

Up to the end of 1933 this new type of capitalist company had bought up and closed down
one hundred shipbuilding berths. In the twelve months to June 1933, the world tonnage of
merchant shipping showed a net decrease of 1,814,000 tons, more than half this decrease
being in tonnage owned by Britain.

Similarly, in the woollen textile industry the Woolcombers Mutual Association, Limited,
was formed early in 1933 "to assist the woolcombing industry by the purchase and
dismantling of redundant and obsolete mills, plant and machinery for re-sale under
restrictive covenants against their further use for woolcombing."

The principal copper producers of the world entered into an agreement at Brussels in
December 1931, to limit production during 1932 to 26 per cent. of the capacity of their
mines.

The National Coffee Council of Brazil, from which country comes two-thirds of the
world's coffee, decided in December 1931 to destroy twelve million bags of coffee. During
1932-3 9,600,000 quintals (equivalent to 1,248 million pounds weight) were destroyed, an
emergency tax being imposed on coffee exports to finance the purchase and destruction of
surplus coffee (League of Nations World Production and Prices 1925-32, P. 28). Up to the
end of 1933 no less than 22,000,000 bags of coffee had been disposed of by burning or
dumping in the sea.

The Governors of Texas and Oklahoma called out the National Guard to take possession of
the oil-wells and prevent production.

The United States Department of Agriculture in the summer Of 1933 announced bounties of
seven to twenty dollars per acre to farmers for the destruction of the cotton crop. This
was successful in securing the ploughing in or mowing down of I I million acres out of a
total Of 40 millions:

The Government hoped to take ten million acres out of production by paying growers $7
to $20 per acre (according to the yield of their land) for ploughing under or mowing down
cotton already growing. . . The scheme was immediately successful in restricting acreage,

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES 67

over 11 million acres being ploughed in or mown down, reducing the estimated acreage
from 40.8 to 29.7 million acres.  (World Economic Survey 1932-3, PP. 313-4.)*

To the modern bourgeois mind and outlook this process of wholesale destruction and
restricting of production, in the midst of poverty, appears as a natural and self-evident
necessity. Without sense of contradiction they proclaim it in the same breath that they
proclaim the necessity of "economy" and "cuts" to the masses; and
correctly they feel no contradiction, since both are indispensable to the maintenance of
capitalism at the present stage. They preach to-day the policy of restriction of
production with the same sense of obvious correctness and common sense with which they
preached after the war the policy of "increased production" as the path to
prosperity. Thus in the summer of 1933 we find the British Chancellor of the Exchequer
answering the "theorists" who imagine restriction of production to be "a
bad thing":

To allow production to go on unchecked and unregulated in these modern conditions when
it could almost at a moment's notice be increased to an almost indefinite extent was
absolute(Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons, June 2,1933:Times, June 3, 1933.)

In the same way the Economist was able to report with satisfaction:

While there was an enormous over-expansion of productive capacity before 1929,
investment in capital equipment has been severely curtailed since then, and a substantial
proportion of existing plant and machinery has become obsolete or has been scrapped. There
can be little doubt that substantial progress has already been made in the re-adjustment
of productive capacity to the lower level of demand for consumers' goods.- (Economist, May
13, 1933.

"Productive capacity" must be "re-adjusted" to the "lower
level" of consumption of the impoverished masses. Such is the

* The practical execution of the scheme, however, was not without difficulties, as
witness the following item from the American Press on August 9, 1933:

SOUTHERN MULES BALK AT PLOWING UP COTTON.

Paul A. Porter of the Administration, just back from the South, reported today that
many farmers had complained they found difficulty in getting their mules to "act
right" while plowing up the cotton. It is not the mule's fault at that, Mr. Porter
explained. All these years be has been lambasted if he walked atop the cotton row. Now it
is the reverse, and he is being asked to trample down stalks he was carefully trained to
protect.  The honours go to the mules rather than to President Roosevelt.

69 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

bed of Procrustes (who was also a bandit, but a less skilled and large- scale bandit)
to which modern capitalism in its extreme stage of decay seeks to fit the tortured body of
humanity.

The more obvious and glaring expressions of this process, the burning of foodstuffs,
the dismantling of machinery that is still in good condition, strike the imagination of
all. But all do not yet see the full significance of these symptoms: first, the expression
through these symptoms of the extreme stage of decay of the whole capitalist order;
second, the inseparable connection of this process of decay with the social and political
phenomena of decay which find their complete expression in Fascism; and third, the
necessary completion and final working out of this process in war. For war is only the
complete and most systematic working out of the process of destruction. To-day they are
burning wheat and grain, the means of human life. To-morrow they will be burning living
human bodies.

2. The Revolt against the Machine.

But this revolt of modern capitalism against the productive forces, against the
development of technique, and for the artificial restriction of production, goes further.
It begins to turn, ideologically, and even in certain concrete propositions and
experimental attempts, into a direct revolt against the machine.

A century ago, in 1831, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge published a
brochure, The Results of Machinery, addressed to the working men of the United Kingdom.
"The little book gives a glowing picture of the glories of invention, of the
permanent blessings of machinery, of the triumphant step that man takes in comfort and
civilisation every time that he transfers one of the meaner drudgeries of the world's work
from human backs to wheels and pistons. The argument is developed with great animation and
vigour, and the writer, as he skirmishes with the workman's prejudices, travels over one
industry and one country after another" (J. L. and B. Hammond, The Town Labourer, p.
17).

To-day the tables are turned. It is no longer the bourgeoisie who are teaching the
ignorant workers, displaced and starving in millions through the advance of machinery
under capitalist conditions, the blessings and advantages of machinery in the abstract. On
the contrary, the bourgeoisie, now that they no longer see rising profits through the
advance of machinery, but 

THE REVOLT AGAINST THE MACHINE 69

instead see their whole position and rule more and more visibly menaced by its
development, change their tune; they deplore the evils of the too rapid advance of
machinery; their tone becomes increasingly one of hostility, fear and hatred to the
machine. It is the working class who, despite their still heavy sufferings through the
advance of the machine under capitalism, now become the conscious champions of the
machine, recognising in it the powerful ally of their fight for a new order, and seeing
with clear understanding its gigantic future beneficent role once it becomes liberated for
social use under the leadership of the working class and in communist society.

Even the scientists and technicians, the inventors of new machinery and technical
processes in the service of capitalism, begin increasingly, with the exception of a small
and courageous minority, to turn against their own children, and to discuss, in te hni

technical and scientific conferences and journals, the necessity of arresting the
advance of invention, of artificially restricting the output of new inventions.

Thus the working class is revealed as the sole consistent progressive force of present
society. The capitalists are the modern Luddites.

This tendency of the capitalist reaction against the machine is not confined to the
social philosophers and speculators; to a Bertrand Russell, with his idealisation of the
decaying Chinese pre- capitalist civilisation in the moment of its dissolution before the
advancing mass revolution; to a Spengler, the favourite and most- quoted philosopher of
Fascism, with his unconcealed hatred of machine-civilisation and worship of his mythical
"primitive man roosting solitary as a vulture without any communal feeling, in
complete freedom, with no 'we' like a herd of mere generic specimens strong, solitary
men" (see his revealing book Der Mensch und die Technik-Man and Technique); or, for
the matter of that, to a Gandhi and his spinning-wheel, the adored of the Western European
intelligentsia, and true prototype, not of a young bourgeoisie, but of a bourgeoisie born
old without ever having known youth, the consistent expression of one aspect of capitalism
in decay (the passive reactionary), just as Spengler is the expression of the other aspect
(the sophisticatedly bloody, combatant reactionary).  But this same tendency reveals
itself increasingly in the statesmen

70 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

and politicians, in the journalists and publicists, Times scientists and technicians.
We have already seen how a

editorial in 1:930 could discuss "how perilously the machine has run ahead of
man" and query "the advantages residing in a system which relies on the mass
production of standardised articles" (March 8, 1930); or how the Hoover Research
Committee in 1932 could speak of the possible necessity of a "slowing down of
mechanical invention."*

In the same way Sir Alfred Ewing, delivering the Presidential address in 1932 to the
British Association, the annual gathering of recognised, conventional bourgeois science,
could declare:

In the present-day thinkers' attitude towards what is called mechanical progress we are
conscious of a critical spirit. Admiration is tempered criticism; complacency has given
way to doubt; doubt is pass into alarm.

An old ex ent of applied mechanics may be forgiven if he expresses so ething of the
disillusion with which, now standing outside, be watches the sweeping pageant of discovery
and invention in which he used to take unbounded delight. it is impossible not to ask,
whither does this tremendous procession tend? What after all is its goal? What its
probable influence upon the future of the human race?

Man was ethically unprepared for so great a bounty. . . . More and more does mechanical
production take the place of human effort. So man finds that, while he is enriched with a
multitude of possessions and possibilities beyond his dreams, he is in great measure
deprived of one inestimable blessing, the necessity of toil. . . .

He has lost the joy of craftsmanship. . . . In many cases unemployment is thrust upon
him, an unemployment that is more saddening than any drudgery.

* As an example of the popularisation by finance-capital of this reactionary propaganda
in its most fantastic form may be noted an article prominently published in the
millionaire-owned Sunday Express under the title, "Make Way for the Small Man,"
denouncing the illusion of "Progress" and the failure of "mass
production," and calling  for the return to "the small owner" as the
ideal: "The unit of the State is the self-supporting farm with first thoughts for
subsistence and only second thoughts for the market-which might be mainly next door and
consist of craftsmen supplying the needs of neighboring farms. "This simple
farm-and-craf t relationship is essential to the health and wealth of any civilisation. .
. . We should try to recover it." (Sunday Express, January 15, 1933.)

Naturally the finance-capitalists would be highly indignant if this infantile
propaganda, which they broadcast by the most highly developed "massproduction"
for the befogging of their readers, were suggested to be seriously applied to their
mammoth undertakings, including their mammoth Press. The preaching of monopoly-capital
against monopoly is an old story.

THE REVOLT AGAINST THE MACHINE 14

And the world finds itself glutted with competitive commodities, produced in a quantity
too great to be absorbed. . . .

Where shall we look for a remedy? I cannot tell.

(Sir Alfred Ewing, Presidential Address to the British Association, 1932: Daily
Telegraph report, Sept. 1, 1932.) This is the confession of bankruptcy of official
bourgeois science before the modern world situation. Not the social conditions which lead
to the abuse of the results of science and invention are seen as the problem, but instead
the gifts of science and invention appear to this modern monk as gifts of the devil, for
which man was "ethically" unprepared-as if "ethics" were independent
of the social conditions from which in fact they take their character. For solution, this
leader of modem bourgeois science confesses his impotence and ends characteristically with
a prayer to "God."

Not only the leaders of bourgeois science, but the financial and political leaders of
capitalism move in the same direction. An outstanding demonstration of this was the speech
of the most "progressive" and "advanced" financier-politician of
French capitalism, Joseph Caillaux, on the World Crisis in the spring of 1(32 before the
Press Association in Paris, and given also in less complete form before the Cobden Club in
London (the following citations are from the report of his Paris speech in the Depeche
Economique et Financiere). His theme was that "the machine is devouring
humanity" ("la machine devore l'homme): "It is necessary to take control of
 technique. It is necessary to prevent inventions suddenly upsetting
production." How? He makes two concrete propositions. First, to set up "in every
State, Departments of Technique, to discipline inventions, paying compensation for them,
and not allowing them to come into use save in proportion as existing plant is
amortised."

The second alternative is "taxation": "to impose heavy taxes on all
inventions of machinery." "Science must be hamstrung ("il faut que la
science soit jogulee"). This is not the language of an escaped lunatic, but of a
cool, far-seeing politician and skilled financier of capitalism.*

* Another example of the current tendency is afforded by the recent book of the leader
of the "Young Conservative" politicians, Lord Eustace Percy, under the title,
Government in Transition. In this book, whose programme shows strong Fascist influence,
"Lord Eustace ends his inquiry in a purely utopian vein: he presents us to a society
which has emerged out of the vices of the machine age and is prepared to resort to the
simple crafts of the pre-machine age." (Times, January 19,1934.) Here Conservatism in
decadence looks longingly backward to the traditions of the pre- capitalist feudal
reaction.

72 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Nor is this tendency confined to theoretical expression; there are not wanting the
first signs of experiments in practice. At Philadelphia, for example, the attempt was made
to meet unemployment by substituting manual labour for machines in some departments of
municipal work:

At Philadelphia the city has decided to abandon the use of a large number of machines
in some departments of municipal work and use manual labour instead. (New York
Correspondent of the London Times, December 12, 1930.)

Thus the final outcome of the most advanced centre of capitalist machine-development is
to return to manual labour. The lesson of Philadelphia, the third greatest manufacturing
city of the greatest manufacturing country of the capitalist world, is a sign and portent
of where decaying capitalism would ultimately reach, if only it had the power to arrest
development and stabilise.

In German Fascism this tendency is strongly to the front, and receives official
encouragement by the Government. Thus the  Thuringian Government in July 1933,
prohibited the use of machinery for glass-blowing. The Acht Uhr Abendblatt, commenting on
this decision with approval, declared:

This is the first example in modern times of the State stopping the metallic arms of
the machine. Its steel limbs, by accomplishing the work which formerly gave nourishment to
hundreds of human hands, have made the machine the mother of working-class misery.

On July 15, 1933, the Reich Government issued an Act prohibiting the installation of
any further machines for rolling tobacco leaves and the re-starting of any established
machinery which had ceased working.

The preamble to the Act states that the progressive mechanisation of the cigar industry
was in process of destroying the livelihood of the population of certain districts. . . .
Machinery has rendered superfluous about 80,000 workers, or five-sixths of the present
labour force. . . . it is stated that the output of rolling machines is about 1,000 to
1,200 cigars an hour, while that of a handworker is only 70. . . . The power given by the
Act to the Ministers concerned

THE REVOLT AGAINST THE MACHINE 73

to limit production in mechanised undertakings is expected to ensure a gradual return
to handwork.

(Manchester Guardian Weekly, September 15, 1933.)

In the beginning of 1934 it was reported from Germany:

The official policy towards the use of machinery is confused; special tax exemption was
last year granted on installation of industrial machinery; but the party ideology rejects
machinery; and Government prohibitions against its use increase. This week the instalment
of automatic machines in the hollow-glass industry was forbidden; and production was
limited. In the cement branch . . . the opening of new or expansion of old works has been
forbidden. . . Forbidding the use of machinery, the express aim of which is to keep
production cost high in the interest of craftsmen producers, hampers export. The
restriction policy is disliked by the more enterprising manufacturer.- (Economist,
February 24, 1934.)

Return to handwork! Return to the Stone Age! Such is the final logical working out of
the most advanced capitalism and Fascism.

In fact, the drive of capitalist competition prevents its realisation. Thus even in the
German Government law for the prohibition of new machinery in the cigar-making industry,
an  exception was explicitly made in respect of production for export; and the
contradiction underlying the whole policy is still more sharply brought out in the last
extract cited above.

But wherever capitalism is able to reach towards fully secured close monopoly, which is
the whole tendency and aim of modern capitalism (though never fully realised), and the
whole essence of the economics of Fascism, the inevitably inseparable tendency to
retrogression of technique and decay is at once visible (compare the frequent examples of
buying up and suppression of new inventions by strongly established trusts). In the
abstract theoretical hypothesis of capitalism being able to consolidate into a single
world monopoly, such general decay would inevitably follow and indeed be the condition of
its existence (virtual prohibition of extended reproduction of capital). Only in socialist
monopoly does the incentive to improvement of technique remain., since every improvement
of technique means an increase in general standards, and diminution of labour.

The revolt of modern capitalist ideology against the machine can never he realised in
practice; on the contrary, the capitalists are compelled to fight each other with ever
sharper weapons.

74 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

But this ever-growing, though unrealisable, aspiration of modern monopoly capitalism
towards the cessation of all development of technique, is a symptom of an economic order
in decay. Fascism, with its propaganda of the return to the primitive and the small-scale,
alongside actual service in practice to all the requirements of the most highly
concentrated finance-capital, is the complete and faithful expression of this profoundly
reactionary character of modern monopoly capitalism, and of the deep contradiction at its
root.

3. The Revolt against Science.

The more and more conscious reactionary role of modern capitalism, and the growing
ideological revolt against the machine and sense of antagonism to the development of
technique, necessarily expresses itself on a wide front in the entire ideological field. A
transformation in the dominant trends of capitalist ideology becomes more and more
conspicuous. This transformation expresses itself in the growing revolt against science,
against reason, against cultural development, against all the traditional philosophical
liberal conceptions which were characteristic of ascendant capitalism; in favour of
religion, idealistic illusions, denial of the validity of science, mysticism,
spiritualism, multiplying forms of superstition, cults of the primitive, cults of
violence, racial charlatanry ("blood" and "Aryan"  nonsense) and
all forms of obscurantism.

This tendency was already visible from the outset of the imperialist epoch, and
especially before the war. It has enormously increased in the post-war period.

The relationship between science and the bourgeoisie has never in fact been an easy
one. Only in the first revolutionary period of the bourgeoisie (in seventeenth-century
England or in later eighteenth- century France) has there been real enthusiasm. In the
nineteenth century, with the bourgeoisie in power, although the enormous profits to be won
from the results of science led to universal official recognition, laudations and a
somewhat stingy financial support, the suspicion was always present that the development
of the scientific outlook might undermine the social foundations. Hence the gigantic
battles of the nineteenth century over each advance of science. The leaders of
nineteenth-century bourgeois science were still warriors in the midst of a widely hostile
social camp. Education

THE REVOLT AGAINST SCIENCE 75

was still in general jealously guarded on pre-scientific lines and under clerical
control.

But what is conspicuous about the present period is that the offensive against science
is to-day led, no longer merely by the professional reactionaries and clericalists, but
above all by the majority of the more prominent, officially recognised and highly placed
leaders of bourgeois science. The main bulk of the officially distinguished, be-knighted
and decorated scientists of the bourgeoisie have openly joined the clerical camp. They
proclaim with wearisome iteration the reconciliation of science and religion, the
overthrow for the thousandth time of the errors of materialism, the limitations of
scientific knowledge, and the supremacy of the "higher" aspects of life which
cannot be approached along scientific lines. In a spate of lectures, essays, treatises and
books, whose popular, vulgarising and often grossly unscientific character betrays their
propagandist aim, they endeavour to utilise each new advance of research and discovery,
not in order therefrom to reach a more scientific understanding of reality, but in order
to throw doubt on the whole basis of science, and on this ground to proclaim the
vindication of the p rticular tribal gods of their locality.

These utterances, still further vulgarised, are broadcast a millionfold by all the
machinery of capitalist publicity as the "last word of science." In this way, at
the same time as for technical and for strategical purposes science has to be more and
more widely employed in practice, a basically reactionary and even anti-scientific 
outlook is endeavoured to be pumped into all the capitalist-controlled forms of
"popular culture."

This transformation in outlook on the part of the responsible leaders of bourgeois
science (with the honourable exceptions of a small and courageous minority) was recently
illustrated in the treatment of the fiftieth anniversary of Darwin's death in 1932 . This
anniversary provided the opportunity for the entire forces of capitalist culture to
proclaim, either the complete obsolescence of the theories of the hated Darwin, or
alternatively, the complete reconciliation of Darwinism with the religious conceptions
which he fought, and the final refutation of the atheism to which he secretly (Darwin's
letter to Marx) adhered. The distinguished scientist and leading authority on Darwinism in
England, Sir J. A. Thomson, wrote for general public consumption in the Daily Telegraph
(April 19, 1932) under

76 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the singular title: "Darwin Fifty Years After: We Now Accept Evolution, Yet
Believe in a Creator"*

There are some changes in our ideas since the hot-headed days that followed the
publication of The Origin of Species in 1859.

Thus many of us are clear that there is no inconsistency in accepting the evolution
idea and yet believing in a Creator who ordained the original Order of Nature in some very
simple form.

The evolution theory does not try to "explain" things in the deeper sense.
Evolutionists . . . leave to philosophy and religion all questions of purpose and meaning.
This is a change for the better.

The shamefaced "agnosticism" of the nineteenth-century scientists has given
place in the twentieth century to proclamation of "a Creator." This is an
excellent example of the "progress backwards" of capitalism in decay.

A further example of the transformation was afforded by an inquiry into "The
Religion of Scientists" conducted by the Christian Evidence Society and published
under this title in 1932. A questionnaire was sent to all Fellows of the Royal Society;
replies were received from 2 00 The results on some of the principal questions showed the
following proportions:

Thus, omitting the intermediates, a "Spiritual Domain" (the expression is
explained in the book as having been intended to mean the denial of materialism) wins by 9
to 1. "God" ( "a Creator") wins by 2 3 to 1. Christianity wins by 4 to
1. These are the answers of a representative group of distinguished bourgeois scientists
in 1932.

We are not here concerned with the philosophical or theoretical significance of this
transformation. Wha for present purposes is the social significance and role of this
development.

The general fact of this avowed transformation of outlook of the majority of
outstanding official representatives of bourgeois

77 THE REVOLT AGAINST SCIENCE

science, the loudly heralded movement against "materialism" and "the
limitations of science," towards "idealism" and religion, is familiar
ground. How far this alleged movement of opinion is really true of the best bourgeois
scientists, or of the mass of younger working rank-and- file scientists, is less important
than the fact that the dominant official influences both in the bourgeois scientific
world, and in general bourgeois discussion, actively support, foster, patronise, encourage
and in every possible way advertise and press forward this trend.

What is not equally clear to all is the direct connection of this ideological trend
with the whole process of capitalism in decay. It is at once its reflection, and helps to
carry it forward. The revolt against science, which bourgeois society to-day encourages in
the ideological sphere, at the same time as it utilises science in practice, is not only
the expression of a dying and doomed social class; it is an essential part of the campaign
of reaction. This is the basis which helps to prepare the ground for all the quackeries
and charlatanries, of chauvinism, racial theories, anti-semitism, Aryan grandmothers,
mystic swastikas, divine missions, strong-man saviours, and all the rest of the nonsense
through which alone capitalism to-day can try to maintain its hold a little longer. 
All this nonsense may appear on a cool view, when some particularly wild ebullition of a
Hitler or a Goebbels about blood and the joy of the dagger and the Germanic man and the
primeval forest, is produced, as highly irrational and even insane. But in fact it is as
completely rational and calculated, for the present purposes of capitalism, as a
machine-gun or a Zinoviev Letter election. There is method in the madness. For capitalism
can no longer present any rational defence, any progressive role, any ideal whatever to
reach the masses of the population. Therefore it can only endeavour to save itself on a
wave of obscurantism, holding out fantastic symbols and painted substitutes for ideals in
order to cover the reality of the universally bated moneybags. Fascism is the final
reduction of this process to a completely worked out technique.

In unity with this revolt against science goes the general cultural reaction, the
revolt against culture, the revolt against education, the cutting down of education in all
capitalist countries, the increasing reactionary discipline and militarisation in the
universities and schools, and-the final and complete

78 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

symbol of the culminating stage revealed by Fascism-the burning of the books.*

4. The Revolt against "Democracy" and Parliament.

This economic, social and ideological process finds also its political reflection. From
the outset of the imperialist era liberalism and parliamentarism has in fact been on the
wane. Parliamentary democracy was essentially the form through which the rising
bourgeoisie carried through its struggle against feudalism and against old privileged
forms, carrying the working class in their wake in this strug le. On this basis was built
up liberalism in its heyday in the nineteenth century. The workers were drawn in the tow
of bourgeois liberal politics. It was the achievement of Marxism to cut through this
bondage. In Britain, where the capitalist world monopoly gave the bourgeoisie superior
resources and the possibility to create a privileged section of a minority of the workers,
Marxism made the slowest progress, and liberal-labour politics survived longest.

As the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie began to replace the
old struggle against the pre-bourgeois forms, a political shifting followed. The old
Liberal Parties began to wane before Social Democracy; the bourgeoisie increasingly
coalesced with the remnants of the older (monarchist, militarist, landowning) forces.
Nevertheless,  parliamentary democracy remained as the most useful basis of the
bourgeoisie for the deception of the masses and holding in of the class struggle, so long
as this means of restraining the workers was adequate.

To-day, when the intensification of the class struggle can no longer be held in by
these forms, the bourgeoisie increasingly

* A sidelight from another angle of the anti-intellectual movement of capitalism in
decline is afforded by the following extract from the technical journal, The Illustrated
Carpenter and Builder: "Nowadays admission to many factories depends on passing
'intelligence tests.'

These tests are not always designed to select the most intelligent of applicants; for
in a certain Continental factory the management admit that they use intelligence tests to
eliminate the alert and intelligent among the applicants, because the work is so sub-
divided and mechanised that its monotony has the effect of turning intelligent workers
into Communists." It is a striking indication of the social and cultural decay
inherent in the final stages of capitalism, when elaborate scientific methods begin to be
used, no longer to promote, but to eliminate intelligence from among the workers, because
intelligent workers become Communists.

THE REVOLT AGAINST DEMOCRACY AND PARLIAMENT 79

turns its back on parliamentary democracy in favour of More direct and open forms of
coercion and the authoritarian state. This is a measure of the weakening of the
bourgeoisie.

The era of imperialism, of centralised monopoly capitalism, already increasingly made
the parliamentary democratic forms a caricature. While in appearance the extension of the
suffrage was increasing "democracy," in reality the governing role was being
directly removed from parliament and concentrated in the executive, into the Cabinet, and
from the Cabinet into the Inner Cabinet, and even into extra- parliamentary forms
(Committee of Imperial Defence, etc.) wholly removed from "democracy," (so the
preparation of the war of 1914: compare the statement of the Conservative, Lord Hugh
Cecil, that the war was decided "not by the House of Commons or by the electorate,
 but by the concurrence of Ministers and ExMinisters," letter to the Times,
April 29, 190.) Corresponding to the realities of monopoly capitalism, the routine of
government was in fact in the hands of an increasingly strengthened and centralised
bureaucracy; effective power and the decision of policy Jay with the handful of leaders of
finance- capital; while the puppet-show of parliament, responsible Ministers, elections
and nominally opposing parties, became increasingly recognised as a decorative appendage
of the Constitution for purposes of window-dressing. This was equally conspicuous in the
"democracies" of the United States, France and Britain.

Nevertheless, Liberalism enjoyed one last blooming in the earlier or pre-war period of
imperialism-but in the new form of Liberal imperialism with its deceptive programme of
"social reform." The super-profits of imperialism provided the means in the
imperialist countries to endeavour to buy off the revolt of the advancing workers with a
show of meagre concessions to a minority. Bismarck had already shown the way to utilise
"social reform" legislation, alongside coercion, in order to endeavour to stem
the advance of Socialism. On the basis of imperialist exploitation was built up the
short-lived twentiethcentury renaissance of Social Reform Liberalism of the Lloyd George
era, which tried to stem the rising tide of working-class revolt with a loudly advertised
show of concessions and concern for the "condition of the people," and with
noisy campaigns of denunciation of the landlords and the aristocracy, while the real aims
of imperialism and war-preparation were

80 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

pressed forward, and all the forces of the State were employed against the militant
working-class struggle.

The Social Democratic and Labour Parties after the war tried to carry forward the role
of Social Reform Liberal Imperialism, but under basically changed conditions-in a far more
advanced stage of the class struggle, and in the midst of the crisis and decline of
capitalism. Therefore they could not attain any corresponding measure of success; the
appeal they could make to the masses on behalf of parliamentary reformism no longer evoked
enthusiasm; the reforms they could achieve were limited by the economic crisis, the
weakening national finances, and the weight of the war-debts they had to carry; the
repressive and coercive measures they had to exercise against the class struggle were far
heavier.

But even the limited measure of social reform concessions began to break down and
dwindle under the pressure of the economic crisis. With the rising colonial revolts, the
basis of imperialism began to weaken. The stream of super-profits diminished; the conflict
of the  rival monopolist capitalisms became more intense. Thus a reverse movement
set in, no longer to the extension of social concessions, but on the contrary to the
cutting down and withdrawal of concessions already granted. This process received its
powerful demonstration in the history and fall of the Second Labour Government and the
crisis of 1931.

From this point the class struggle is forced increasingly into the open, bursting
through the thin cover of liberal and parliamentary democratic illusions. Even Social
Democracy is forced to speak of the "collapse of reformism" and the "end of
social reform," and the consequent inevitability of a "frontal" attack on
capital (so the general propaganda line of the Leicester Labour Party Conference in 1932),
at the same time as it merges in practice still more completely into alliance with
monopoly capitalism and repression of the workers (the "Public Corporations"
line, etc.). The confrontation of the working class and capitalism can no longer be
covered by liberal and reformist pretences of improving conditions under capitalism.

From this point the demand becomes increasingly strong from the representatives of
capitalism for the throwing aside or modification of the old parliamentary democratic
forms, which no longer serve their purpose, and the establishment of open

THE REVOLT AGAINST "DEMOCRACY" AND PARLIAMENT 81

and strengthened forms of repression and dictatorship. The revolt against
"democracy" and "parliament," which was already marked in bourgeois
circles before the war, but was still confined in direct expression to the narrower
reactionary circles, now become general in all current expression. The demand of an Owen
Young for a "holiday of parliaments" ("If a holiday of armaments is good, a
holiday of parliaments would be better," speech at the Lotus Club, New York, on
December 6, 1930); or of a Sir William Beveridge for "a world dictator" (Halley
Stewart lecture in February 1932); or the announcement of a Gordon Selfridge to the
American Chamber of Commerce in London on his return from the United States that "as
an American be spoke to fifty representative men in America, and did not find one who
disagreed with his view that democracy in that great country could not possibly succeed as
a system of government . . . a country should be managed as a great business was
managed" (Times, June 22, 1932): these and a thousand similar expressions are typical
of the present outlook of the representatives of finance-capital, and are paralleled by
the sceptical tone of the parliamentarians themselves, the openly anti-parliamentary tone
of the Press, or of the once ((progressive" literary intelligentsia (Shaw, Wells), no
less than the direct attack of a Churchill, Lloyd or Tardieu.  The Social Democratic
and Labour Parties, moving parallel with capitalism, undergo a similar transformation of
outlook, and begin to speak increasingly of the "limitations of parliament" and
the necessity of strengthening "discipline" and "authority" in the
State ("Neo-Socialism" in France, the Socialist League propaganda in England;
see also Laski's Democracy in Crisis, 1933, and Vandervelde's L'Alternative, 1933, for the
weakening of the old abstract-democratic assumptions).

The practice of modem capitalism moves increasingly away from parliamentary-democra tic
forms to strengthened and more open coercion and class-dictatorship. This applies not only
to the directly Fascist states, but also to the diminishing number of imperialist states
which still remain nominally "democratic." The Roosevelt emergency powers, and
the National Government in Britain, represent stages and phases of a process of
transformation, corresponding in some respects to the Bruning stage in Germany. Modem
legislation increases the powers of the executive, of the bureaucracy and of the police,
and more

82 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUT1014

and more restricts the limits of the legal working-class movement, of the right of
meeting and association, and of the right to strike. This process of the
"transformation of democracy" in the Western imperialist countries, and
preparation of the ground for Fascism, is further examined in a later chapter.

The stream against parliamentary democracy is rising on all sides, although this does
not mean that capitalism has yet exhausted its uses. But the real issue is commonly
confused by the vulgar propagandist treatment that the attack on "democracy" is
a parallel attack of Communism and Fascism. On the contrary. The critique of Communism or
Marxism against capitalist democracy is not that it is "too democratic," but
that it is "not democratic enough," that it is in reality only a deceitful cover
for capitalist dictatorship, and that real democracy for the workers can only be achieved
when the proletarian dictatorship breaks the power of the capitalist class. The movement
of modern capitalism, on the other hand, against parliamentary democracy is a movement to
strengthen repression of the working class and establish the open and violent dictatorship
of monopoly capital. The reality of this issue between oligarchic dictatorship and
working-class freedom breaks through the old illusory trappings of parliamentary
democracy.

5. "National Self-Sufficiency."  A no less strongly marked expression
of the modern tendencies of capitalism is the movement towards so-called "national
self- sufficiency," "autarchy ... .. national planning,"
"isolationism," etc. This tendency has come most strongly to the front since the
world economic crisis, and the breakdown of the World Economic Conference revealed its
strength. This development is the logical working out of imperialist decay.

Of this tendency as the dominant tendency in the latest phase of world politics the
League of Nations economic expert, Sir Arthur Salter, wrote in his standard work Recovery
in 1931:

World trade may be restricted to small dimensions, through every country excluding
imports of everything which (at whatever expense) it can make or produce at home. Along
this line of development, America might withdraw within herself, arresting and almost
abandoning her foreign investments, sacrificing her export trade, and cultivating an
isolated self-sufficiency on the

"NATIONAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY" 83

lower level of prosperity which this would necessitate. As the world closed against
her, Great Britain might be forced to supplement such preferential trade with the
Dominions and India as may be practicable, with a policy of exploiting and closing in her
non-self-governing Empire from the rest of the world, against all the traditions and
principles of her history. This line of development would mean loss to every country,
impoverishment to countries like Switzerland which have no similar resources, and an
organisation of the world into separate units and groups which would soon be dangerous and
ultimately fatal to world peace. It is along this path that the world is now proceeding.
(Sir Arthur Salter, Recovery, pp. 192-3.) This description, although faithfully reflecting
one side of the tendency, and to some extent indicating the possible outcome, is not a
fully correct description of the actual process. For, while the propaganda speaks in terms
of internal selfsufficiency, the reality of the policy remains the fight of the
imperialist powers, on the basis of this strengthened internal organisation, for the world
market.

In fact, the movement towards the closed monopolist area is not in itself new, but is
inherent in the whole development of imperialism, whose essential character is the denial
and ending of free trade. What is new is only the extreme intensity with which this
monopolist policy is now pursued, and the complexity of the weapons which are now brought
into play for its realisation.

Not only the old tariff weapons, which are now brought to unheard  of heights,
but a host of new weapons-surtaxes variable at a moment's notice, quotas, embargoes,
exchange restrictions, currency control, complex trade alliances, State subsidies, and
direct State economic control-are now brought into play by the imperialist giants in their
ever more desperate conflict for closed markets, for privileged areas of exploitation, and
for control of the sources of raw materials.

The intensified conflict of the imperialist Powers for the shrinking world market makes
this development to new and ever fiercer weapons of economic warfare, and essentially
reactionary choking of the channels of free world trade, not merely some foolish and
mistaken policy of particular statesmen, but the inevitable development and working out of
the inner laws of imperialism. In vain the theoretical economic experts of the League of
Nations throw up their bands in distress and deplore

84 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the universal "loss" and "impoverishment" caused by such politics;
in vain the international conferences of economic experts, as at Geneva in 1927, pass
unanimous resolutions condemning the destructive barbarism of such intensified economic
warfare and calling for its reversal. The reality moves in the opposite direction to the
resolutions. For there is no world capitalism as a whole to adopt the
"enlightened" policies so patiently and incessantly held out by the economic
theorists and would-be reformers of capitalism; just here is the cardinal error of the
Salters and all their company.* There is only the conflict of the rival imperialist
powers; and in the conditions of this conflict the statesmen and leaders of
finance-capital, however much they may regret the cost and the losses involved, see no
alternative to the policies they find themselves compelled to pursue if they are not to go
under. In the words of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the eve of the World
Economic Conference, explaining the necessity of maintaining economic warfare:

Much as all of us regretted the economic warfare which had arisen between us and other
countries, we must maintain that warfare as long as it was the other countries which had
taken the aggressive. (Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons, June 2, 1933.)

"We must maintain that warfare;" the fault lies with "the other
countries." This is the keynote of all the imperialist powers.

The most important expression of this transformation of

* It is characteristic of this whole school that, after recording a hundred previous
disappointments, Sir Arthur Salter concludes his Preface to the Seventh Edition of
Recovery on January 1, 1933, with the hopeful statement: "The World Economic
Conference afford, the next occasion for a great constructive effort." The history of
1933 provided the comment. Indeed, even the professional optimists of capitalism begin to
lose heart. Salter writes further in the same Preface: "The whole system under which
our rich heritage of Western civilisation has grown up is at stake. Its fate depends, not
only upon deliberate and concerted governmental action, but also upon constructive reform
by those who organise and direct policy through every main sphere of economic activity.
The sands are running out; but it is still not-quite-too late." This was at the
beginning of 1933 before the further aggravation of the issues during 1933. In fact, it
was always "too late" from the outset for the imagined "Constructive reform
by those who organise and direct policy through every main sphere of economic
activity," because in the conditions of post-war imperialism such "constructive
reform" never was, and never could be, other than a Liberal civil servant's myth.

" NATIONAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY" 85

policy in the present period was the passing of British Imperialism in 193 2 from the
old f ree-trade basis to a general tariff and the policy of the closed Empire. The long
survival of free trade in Britain reflected the remnants of the old commercial and
financial world domination. The Chamberlain propaganda in the beginning of the imperialist
era, and the strongly reinforced Empire Economic Unity propaganda after the war showed the
pressing forward of the new forces. As late as 1926 the Bankers' Manifesto issued in that
year still called for a general movement towards lower tariffs and free trade. The
Bankers' Manifesto of 1930, signed by all the most important financial leaders, marked the
decisive turn, and the end of the last remains of the old era, with its declaration:

The immediate step for securing and extending the market for British goods lies in
reciprocal trade agreements between the nations constituting the British Empire.

As a condition of securing these agreements, Great Britain must retain her open market
for all Empire products, while being prepared  to impose duties on all imports from
all other countries.

The Ottawa Conference of 1932 showed the attempt to carry out this policy. Although in
relation to the Dominions heavy concessions from Britain have only won small and doubtful
gains, in relation to India and the Crown Colonies the policy is being pressed forward at
full strength. The subsequent elaborate trading negotiations for exclusive agreements, the
agricultural quota arrangements, and the use of the currency weapon to endeavour to
organise a "sterling bloc," all mark the development of the new system.

Attempts are frequently made to present the new phase of intensified monopolist
conflict in idealist form under cover of the slogans of "national planning,"
"national self-sufficiency," etc., or to compare it with the entirely opposite
process of socialist construction of the Soviet Five-Year Plan. The manifest economic
breakdown of the capitalist anarchy, contrasted with the simultaneous gigantic advance of
the Soviet Five-Year Plan, led to an outburst of talk of "planning" in the
capitalist world. A World Planning Congress was held at Amsterdam in 193 1. A myriad
abortive schemes for Five-Year Plans, TenYear Plans and Twenty-Year Plans were put forward
in 0 the capitalist countries. The Trades Union Congress in 1931, true

86 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

to its line of alliance with capitalism and worship of "organised
capitalism," adopted a resolution which declared:

This Congress welcomes the present tendency towards a planned and regulated economy in
our national life.

(Belfast Trades Union Congress resolution, 1931.)

Needless to say, this description of the real process which is taking place is a
complete deception. The conditions of private ownership of the means of production, and of
production for profit, negate the elementary conditions for any real scientific economic
planning, which requires a single ownership of the means of production and the
Organisation of production for use. The reality which is described under the euphemism of
"a planned and regulated economy in our national life" is intensified monopolist
Organisation in a given imperialist area (not national area) for the purposes of sharpened
world imperialist conflict and increased exploitation of the workers.

The complete passing over of the previous progressive elements in capitalism to the new
reactionary policies is illustrated by the conversion of the former leading Liberal
economic theorist, Keynes, in his articles on "National Self -Sufficiency" (New
Statesman and  Nation, July 8 and 15, 1933). Keynes writes:

I was brought up, like most Englishmen, to respect Free Trade not only as an economic
doctrine which a rational and instructed person could not doubt but almost as a part of
the moral law. I regarded departures from it as being at the same time an imbecility and
an outrage. I thought England's unshakable Free Trade convictions, maintained for nearly a
hundred years, to be both the explanation before man and the justification before heaven
of her economic supremacy. As lately as 1923 I was writing that Free Trade was based on
fundamental truths "which, stated with their due qualifications, no one can dispute
who is capable of understanding the meaning of words."

Looking again to-day at the statements of these fundamental truths which I then gave, I
do not find myself disputing them. Yet the orientation of my mind is changed; and I share
this change of mind with many others.

He then sets out the drawbacks of which he has become aware in the working out of the
system of international capitalism, and reaches the conclusion:

I sympathise therefore with those who would minimise, rather

87 "NATIONAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY"

than those who would maximise economic entanglements between nations. . . . I am
inclined to the belief that, after the transition is accomplished, a greater measure of
national self-sufficiency and economic isolation between countries than existed in 1914
may tend to serve the cause of peace rather than otherwise.

More fully, he declares: We wish to be as free as we can make ourselves from the
interferences from the outside world. . . . Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality,
travel-these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods
be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and above all let finance
be primarily national.

It will be seen that the outlook of Keynes has begun to approximate to that of Hitler.
This is a valuable measure of capitalism in decay. The reality behind the phraseology of a
Keynes or other capitalist "national planners" must not be misunderstood. The
belated discovery by Keynes of the naive, subjective and uncritical assumptions on which
the old traditional "economic science" of the bourgeoisie, especially in its
centre in England, was always based, does not here concern us. Marx long agoin the middle
nineteenth century-before, not after the  eventlaid bare the local, temporary and
insular character of the free trade economic theory as only the reflection of the
historically caused British capitalist supremacy; and showed also how this phase would
necessarily pass, how British capitalist supremacy would disappear, and with it the
accompanying free trade theory, and liberal free trade capitalism would pass into
monopolist capitalism and the period of decay. However, the empiricist can only learn from
the behind-side of history; only the impact of the event compels the bourgeois professors
of economics to begin to grope for the source of their errors. Keynes, the faithful
believer in the divine ordainment of free trade and British economic supremacy until 1923,
in 1933 announces his disillusionment with the pride of a pioneer.

What is important, however, is that this disillusionment or "change of mind"
which he "shares with many others" is only the reflection of the change of
capitalism, which he translates into universal conclusions in exactly the same subjective
and uncritical way as the old free trade theory which he now condemns. For in fact, the
issue is no longer between international

88 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

free trade capitalism and monopolist capitalism in its modem forms. That issue has long
been settled in practice. At the present time history has placed on the order of the day a
different issue, of which he is unaware. The daring "advance" which he believes
himself to have made in his thought, with his conversion from old liberal fetishes to
"national self-sufficiency," leaves him in reality still well in the rear of
events as the faithful servitor of the ruling class; he has simply passed from being the
servitor of one phase of capitalism to becoming the servitor of the next.

In reality, "national self-sufficiency" is only the ideal cover for the
modern forms of monopolist capitalism, extreme intensification of antagonisms, and advance
to Fascism and war. Just as the imperialist blocs cover their predatory wars for the
spoils of the world under cover of the slogan of "national defence," so they
seek increasingly to-day to cover their monopolist economic Organisation and warfare under
cover of the slogan of "national self- sufficiency." It is this advance to war
which is the essential significance concealed behind the slogan of "national
self-sufficiency."

6. War as the Final "Solution."

The culmination and final working out of all the new policies of capitalism under the
stress of the world crisis is the advance to the second world war.

The effects of the world economic crisis enormously intensified all existing
international antagonisms. The "pacific" "internationalist" language
of the stabilisation period (Locarno, Briand-Stresemann,  Kellogg Pact) gives place
to increasingly open national-chauvinist language and policies. International conference
after international conference breaks down. Even such limited success as attends the
measures of internal reorganisation, of strengthening and tightening up of monopolist
economy and aggressive power, within each imperialism, only leads to the intensification
of world antagonisms. There is a renewed and ever more feverish pressing forward of
armaments on all sides, and of industries connected with armaments. The World Disarmament
Conference breaks down. Japan and Germany withdraw from the League of Nations. The issue
of "disarmament" passes into the issue of "re-armament." Alliances and
counter

89 WAR AS THE FINAL "SOLUTION"

alliances are actively built up on every side. The Naval Limitation Treaty passes into
the melting-pot.

Alongside the limited "revival" of world production in 1933 and 1934-and,
indeed, as an important element in this "revival"-the armaments industries leapt
forward; their shares and profits rapidly rose. According to the calculations of the
German Institute of Economic Research (Institut fur Konjunkturforschung), the proportions
of world armaments expenditure and of world production, on the basis of 1928 as zoo,
showed the following significant picture:

The war budgets of the principal countries for 1934 showed a sharp net increase: of
Germany by; L17 millions, of the United States by ;E16 millions, of France by L10 millions
(together with a special internal loan for armaments of L40 millions), of Japan by 19
millions, of Britain by L5 millions (together with a supplementary air programme of L20
millions over five years).

The gathering expectation of the close approach of war finds increasingly frequent
expression in the speeches of the statesmen of all countries. Typical was Mussolini's
"War ToDay" declaration in his speech to the officers at the Italian army
manoeuvres in August, 1934:

War is in the air and might break out at any moment. We must prepare, not for a war for
to-morrow, but for a war of to-day.

In July, 1934, Marshal Petain declared in his speech to the Reserve  Officers'
Conference at St. Malo that the next war would break out like a "lightning
flash." Baldwin, in advocating the new British air programme in the House of Commons
in July, 1934, reported a greater sense of uneasiness, of malaise, in Europe than we have
hitherto experienced. Churchill in the same debate declared:

The situation was serious and grave. Europe was moving ever more rapidly into a tightly
drawn net. Almost all nations were arming, and every one felt that the danger they dreaded
most of all was drawing nearer."

90 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The propaganda of war spreads. War begins to be presented as the heroic alternative,
the last hope, the "way out" from the unending nightmare of economic crisis,
misery and unemployment. Fascism, the most complete expression of modern capitalism,
glorifies war. The filthy sophism "War means Work" begins to be circulated by
the poison agencies of imperialism, and filters down to the masses. As Carlyle, in whom
many antecedents of Fascism can be traced, wrote in his Sartor Resartus: "The lower
people everywhere desire war. Not so unwisely; there is then a demand for lower people-to
be shot." It is a measure of the stage reached by capitalist civ- ilisation that
to-day, before the leading capitalist countries- other than Japan-are yet directly
involved in war, while there are still nominally conditions of peace, it is possible for
such an argument to be seriously presented and widely repeated and actually discussed,
that murder is the only way to provide men and women with work and livelihood.

All to-day see the ever more visible approach of war. Rising alarm is expressed in many
quarters of bourgeois opinion who see the ruin and destruction of the entire existing
society involved in the menace of renewed world war. But these sections of anti-war
opinion see only the question of war in isolation, and concentrate their efforts on
capitalist "machinery" to avoid war, without realising that such machinery of
imperialism can only function as machinery to organise the future war in the name of
"ideal" symbols. Bourgeois pacifism, attached to the official League of Nations,
and preaching passivity and non-resistance to the masses, becomes an indispensable part of
the war-preparations of imperialism, and as such officially recognised and encouraged by
all the warmaking statesmen of imperialism. All the statesmen of imperialism, Roosevelt
and MacDonald, Henderson and PaulBoncour, Mussolini and Hitler, are to-day
"pacifists" in their public utterances-and in their governmental roles actively
press forward the building of armaments and the preparation of imperialist  war.

War is only the continuation and working out of the crisis of capitalism and of the
present policies of capitalism. It is inseparable from these, and cannot be treated in
isolation. All the policies of capitalist reorganisation, all the policies of Fascism, can
only hasten the advance to war. This is equally

WAR AS THE FINAL " SOLUTION' " 91

true of the line of a Roosevelt, a MacDonald or a Hitler. War is no sudden eruption of
a new factor from outside, a vaguely future menace to be exorcised by special machinery,
but is already in essence implicit in the existing factors, in the existing driving forces
and policies of capitalism. All the existing policies of capitalism are policies of
eversharpening war: of ever more formidably organised imperialist blocs; of tariff-war, of
gold-war, of currency-war; of war with every possible economic, diplomatic and political
weapon. It is no far step from these to the final stage of armed war. All the existing
policies of capitalism are more and more dominantly policies of destruction. The
capitalists are to-day the destructive force in human society. All their most typical
modern policy, from super-tariffs and debt-enslavement of whole states to burning
foodstuffs and devastating cotton plantations, from dismantling plant and machinery to
throwing millions of skilled and able workers on the scrap-heap of starvation, is a policy
of destruction of human effort and labour, strangling of production, destruction of life.
War is only a continuation of this policy. It is no far step from spending millions of
pounds to buy up machinery in order to destroy it, to spending millions to produce guns
and warships and munitions to be blown up into the air. It is no far step from condemning
millions of human beings to the death-in-life of unemployment as "superfluous,"
to the final solution of disposing of their lives and bodies by bomb and gas and chemical,
for the greater profit of whatever group of capitalists can gain most in the redivision of
the world by the holocaust. But this does not mean that war, any more than Fascism,
presents the final "solution" of the crisis of capitalism. On the contrary. War,
like Fascism, is to-day the outcame of the intensified contradictions of capitalist
society in decay; but neither solve those contradictions. On the contrary, both bring out
those contradictions to the most extreme point, organise upon their basis, and lay bare
the deep disintegration of existing society, both internally and internationally, to the
point of destruction. The crisis extends and develops through these forms to yet greater
intensity, and thereby only reveals the more sharply that the sole final solution lies in
the social revolution. 

In the first three chapters of this book attention has been deliberately concentrated
on the developing tendencies of modern capitalist society as a whole since the wax, in
place of limiting attention to the distinctively "Fascist" countriesItaly,
Germany, etc.

Such a survey has revealed how close is the parallel which can be traced in every
field, economic, political and ideological, between the increasingly dominant tendencies
of theory and practice of all modern capitalism since the war and the professedly peculiar
theory and practice of Fascism.

Fascism, in fact, is no peculiar, independent doctrine and system arising in opposition
to existing capitalist society. Fascism, on the contrary, is the most complete and
consistent working out, in certain conditions of extreme decay, of the most typical
tendencies and policies of modem capitalism.

What are these characteristics which are common, subject to a difference in degree, to
all modern capitalism and to Fascism? The most outstanding of these characteristics may be
summarised as follows:

I. The basic aim of the maintenance of capitalism in the face of the revolution which
the advance of productive technique and of class antagonisms threatens.

2. The consequent intensification of the capitalist dictatorship

3. The limitation and repression of the independent workingclass movement, and building
up of a system of organised classco- operation.

5. The extending State monopolist organisation of industry and finance.

6. The closer concentration of each imperialist bloc into a single economic-political
unit. 

THE CLASS-CONTENT OF FASCISM 93

7. The advance to war as the necessary accompaniment of the increasing imperialist
antagonisms. All these characteristics are typical, in greater or lesser degree, of all
modem capitalist states, no less than of the specifically Fascist states. In this wider
sense it is possible to speak of the development towards Fascism of all modern capitalist
states. The examples of the Roosevelt and Bruning regimes offer particular illustrations
of near- Fascist or pre-Fascist stages of development towards complete Fascism within the
shell of the old forms. Nor is it necessarily the case that the development to Fascism
takes the same form in detail in each country. The sum-total of the policies of modern
capitalism provide already in essence and in germ the sum-total of the policies of
Fascism. But they are not yet complete Fascism. The completed Fascist dictatorship is
still only so far realised over a limited area. What is the specific character of complete
Fascism? The specific character of complete Fascism lies in the means adopted towards the
realisation of these policies, in the new social and political mechanism built tip for
their realisation. This is the specific or narrower significance of Fascism in the sense
of the Fascist movements or the completed Fascist dictatorships as realised in Italy,
Germany and other countries. Fascism in this specific or narrower sense is marked by
definite familiar characteristics: in the case of the Fascist movements, by the
characteristics of terrorism, extra-legal fighting formations, anti-parliamentarism,
national and social demagogy, etc.; in the case of the completed Fascist dictatorships, by
the suppression of all other parties and organisations, and in particular the violent
suppression of all independent workingclass organisation, the reign of terror, the
"totalitarian" state, etc. It is to this specific sense of Fascism, that is to
say, to fully complete Fascism, that we now need to come. I. The Class-Content of Fascism.
What, then, is Fascism in this specific or narrower sense? The definitions of Fascism
abound, and are marked by the greatest diversity and even contradictory character, despite
the identity of the concrete reality which it is attempted to describe. Fascism, in the
view of the Fascists themselves, is a spiritual

 94 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

reality. It is described by them in terms of ideology. It represents the principle of
"duty," of "order," of "authority," of "the
State," of "the nation," of "history," etc. Mussolini finds the
essence of Fascism in the conception of the "State": The foundation of Fascism
is the conception of the State, its character, its duty and its aim. Fascism conceives of
the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative.
. . . Whoever says Fascism implies the State. (Mussolini's article on "Fascism"
in the Enciclopedia Italiana, 1932, published in English under the title "The
Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism," 1933.)

We further learn that "Fascism believes in holiness and in heroism";
"the Fascist conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should
be high and full, lived for oneself, but above all for others"; "Fascism combats
the whole complex system of democratic ideology"; "Fascism believes neither in
the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace"; "the Fascist State is an
embodied will to power"; "the Fascist State is not indifferent to the fact of
religion"; "for Fascism the growth of Empire is an essential manifestation of
virility"; "Fascism denies the materialist conception of happiness as a
possibility"-and similar profound, and hardly very original philosophisings in an
endless string, the ordinary stock-in-trade of all Conservatism. Luigi Villari, the
semi-official exponent of Fascism in the Encyclopaedia. Britannica, writes: The programme
of the Fascists differs from that of other parties, as it represents for its members not
only a rule of political conduct, but also a moral code. Mosley in his Greater Britain,
the official handbook of British Fascism, explains: The movement is Fascist (I) because it
is based on a high conception of citizenship-ideals as lofty as those which inspired the
reformers of a hundred years ago; (2) because it recognises the necessity for an
authoritative State, above party and sectional interests. The Fascist, the organ of the
Imperial Fascist League, defines Fascism (in its issue of August 1933): Fascism is defined
as a patriotic revolt against democracy, and

95 THE CLASS-CONTENT OF FASCISM

a return to statesmanship. Fascist rule insists upon the duty of co- operation. Fascism
itself is less a policy than a state of mind. It is the national observance of duty
towards others. It is manifest that all this verbiage is very little use to bring out
 the real essential character of Fascism. In the first place, all these abstract
general conceptions which are paraded as the peculiar outlook of Fascism have no
distinctive character whatever, but are common to a thousand schools of bourgeois
political philosophy, which are not yet Fascist, and in particular to all
national-conservative schools. The generalisations of "duty of co-operation,"
"duty towards others ... .. life as duty and struggle," "a high conception
of citizenship," "the State above classes," "the common interest
before self" (motto of the German National Socialist Programme), are the dreary
commonplaces of all bourgeois politicians and petty moralisers to cover the realities of
class domination and class-exploitation. The professedly distinctive philosophy of the
idealisation of the State as an "absolute end" transcending all individuals and
sections is only the vulgarisation of the whole school of Hegel and his successors,
constituting the foundation of the dominant school of bourgeois political philosophy. In
all these conceptions there is not a trace of original or distinctive thought. In the
second place, it is in fact incorrect to look for an explanation of Fascism in terms of a
particular theory, in ideological terms. Fascism, as its leaders are frequently fond of
insisting, developed as a movement in practice without a theory ("In the now distant
March of 1919," says Mussolini in his encyclopaedia article, "since the creation
of the Fascist Revolutionary Party, which took place in the January of 1915, I had no
specific doctrinal attitude in my mind"), and only later endeavoured to invent a
theory in order to justify its existence. Fascism, in fact, developed as a movement in
practice, in the conditions of threatening proletarian revolution, as a counter-
revolutionary mass movement supported by the bourgeoisie, employing weapons of mixed
social demagogy and terrorism to defeat the revolution and build up a strengthened
capitalist state dictatorship; and only later endeavoured to adorn and rationalise this
process with a "theory." It is in this actual historical process that the
reality of Fascism must be

96 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

found, and not in the secondary derivative attempts post festum at adornment with a
theory. No less unsatisfactory are the attempted anti-Fascist interpretations of Fascism
in terms of ideology or abstract political conceptions. The conventional anti-Fascist
ideological interpretations of Fascism see in Fascism only the principle of
"dictatorship" or "violence." This approach, which is the hallmark of
the liberal and social democratic schools of thought in relation to Fascism, sees Fascism
as the parallel extreme to Communism, both being counterposed to bourgeois
"democracy." Fascism is defined as "Dictatorship from the Right" in
contrast to Communism as "Dictatorship from the Left" (this line is
characteristically expressed in the Labour Party Manifesto of March  1933, on
"Democracy versus Dictatorship" in explanation of the Labour refusal of the
united workingclass front against Fascism). It is evident that this definition of Fascism
is equally useless as an explanation of the real essential character of Fascism.
"Dictatorships from the Right" have existed and can exist in hundreds of forms
without in any sense constituting Fascism. Tsarism. was a "Dictatorship from the
Right." But Tsarism was not Fascism. The White Guard dictatorships immediately after
the war for crushing the revolution were "Dictatorships from the Right." But
these White Guard dictatorships were not yet Fascism, and only subsequently began to
develop Fascist characteristics as they began to try to organise a more permanent basis
(subsequent evolution in Hungary and Finland). Fascism may be in fact a reactionary
dictatorship. But not every reactionary dictatorship is Fascism. The specific character of
Fascism has still to be defined. Wherein, then, lies the specific character of Fascism?
The specific character of Fascism cannot be defined in terms of abstract ideology or
political first principles. The specific character of Fascism can only be defined by
laying bare its class-basis, the system of class-relations within which it develops and
functions, and the class-role which it performs. Only so can Fascism be seen in its
concrete reality, corresponding to a given historical stage of capitalist development and
decay. As soon, however, as we endeavour to come to the class

MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLUTION OR DICTATORSHIP? 97

analysis of Fascism we find ourselves confronted with a diametrical opposition of two
viewpoints. In the one viewpoint Fascism is presented as an independent movement of the
middle class or petit-bourgeoisie in opposition to both the proletariat and to large-scale
capital. In the other viewpoint Fascism is presented as a weapon of finance- capital,
utilising the support of the middle class, of the slum proletariat and of demoralised
working-class elements against the organised working class, but throughout acting as the
instrument and effective representative of the interests of finance-capital. Only when we
have cleared this opposition, and what lies behind it, can we finally come to the real
definition of Fascism.

2. Middle-Class Revolution or Dictatorship of Finance-Capital? Fascism is commonly
presented as a "middle-class" (i.e., petit- bourgeois) movement. There is an
obvious measure of truth in this in the sense that Fascism in its inception commonly
originates from middle-class (petit- bourgeois) elements, directs a great deal of its
appeal to the middle class, to small business and the professional classes against the
organised working class and the trusts and big finance, draws a great  part of its
composition, and especially its leadership, from the middle class, and is soaked through
with the ideology of the middle class, of the petit-bourgeoisie under conditions of
crisis. So far, there is common agreement as to the obvious facts. But Fascism is also
often presented as a middle-class movement in the sense of an indcpendent movement of the
middle class, as a "third party" independent of capital or labour, in opposition
to both the organised working class and large-scale capital. The Fascist dictatorship is
accordingly presented as a "conquest of power" by the middle class in opposition
to both the organised working class and to the previous domination of finance-capital.
This conception is common in liberal and social democratic treatment of Fascism. Thus the
liberal-labour New Statesman and Nation writes (October 28, 1933): The collapse of
capitalism does not at all necessarily lead to the seizure of power by the proletarians,
but more probably to the

98 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

dictatorship of the middle class. This is surely the Achilles heel of Communist theory.
Brailsford, the leading theorist of English Social Democracy, writes: If the Marxist
conception of history be sound, somewhere surely on the surface of this stricken planet
the increasing misery of the workers should have produced some aggressive stirring. That
is nowhere the case. There is, however, an aggressive class which has made in one great
industrial country its revolutionary stroke. The German Nazis are emphatically the party
of the small middle class. . . . This class rose and captured the machinery of the State,
because it was "miserable" and desperate. It shrank in terror from the menace of
large-sc(H. N. Brailsford, "No Hands Wanted," New Clarion, July 8, 1933.) And
again: A militant middle class, with its dare-devil younger generation to lead it, faces
the organised workers. If on both sides there has developed a distrust in parliamentary
procedure, and a contempt for its dilatory and irresolute ways, the issue between them can
be decided only by force. The class which first decides to organise itself for this new
phase will enter the contest with an overwhelming advantage(H. N. Brailsford, "Will
England Go Fascist?" NewsChronicle, November 28, 1933.) The Socialist Review in
January 1929 published an article entitled "The Third Nation," arguing that
"the assumption at the root of all Communist theory" of a basic division between
the capitalists and the  proletariat as the decisive issue of modern society was
false: Apart from the capitalists and the proletariat-and between them - there is a third
class. Here, then, is the fundamental question for Marxists: Does this class exhibit the
characteristics of a subject class, about to make a bid for supremacy? A possible answer
is that, in one country-Italy-they have already emerged as a revolutionary class. The
Fascist revolution was essentially a revolution of the third class. The American would-be
"Marxist" journal, the Modern Monthly, says in an editorial on "What is
Fascism?": The first task of the Fascist dictatorship was to wrest state power

MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLUTION OR DICTATORSHIP? 99

from the hands of the private bankers, industrialists and landlords who possessed it. .
. . The Fascist dictatorship, it is clear, then, became possible only because of the two
factors above noted: first, the crisis in imperialism and the consequent collapse of
ruling-class power and policy, and, secondly the rise of a belligerent lower middle-class
which provided a mass basis for its assumption of power. (V. F. Calverton in the Modern
Monthly, July, 1933.) Even Scott Nearing's otherwise fruitful and valuable study of
"Fascism" is marred by this same basic theory of Fascism as a petit- bourgeois
revolution: At the centre of the Fascist movement is the middle class, seeking to save
itself from decimation or annihilation by seizing power and establishing its own political
and social institutions. It therefore has the essential characteristics of a social
revolutionary movement, since its success means the shift of the centre of power from one
class to another. Fascism arises out of the revolt of the middle class against the
intolerable burdens of capitalist imperialism. (Scott Nearing, "Fascism,"
Vanguard Press, New York,P.42.)

This separation of Fascism from the bourgeois dictatorship reaches its extreme point in
the official Labour Party and Trades Union Congress organ, the Daily Herald, which, on May
2, 1933, after the full demonstration of the real character of Hitlerism in practice,
still looked hopefully towards it to carry out some form of "socialist"
programme against big capital:

The "National-Socialists," it is essential to remember, call themselves
"Socialist" as well as "National." Their "Socialism" is not
the Socialism of the Labour Party, or that of any recognised Socialist Party in other
countries. But in many ways it is a creed that is anathema to the big landlords, 
the big industrialists and the big financiers. And the Nazi leaders are bound to go
forward with the "Socialist" side of their programme. (Daily Herald editorial on
"Hitler's May Day," May 2, 1933.)

Thus Fascism in the view of the Labour Party is almost a wing of Socialism, a rather
unorthodox variety of Socialism, but "anathema to the big landlords, the big
industrialists and the big financiers" (who, curiously enough, maintained it in funds

100 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

and finally placed it in power). The same day that this article appeared in the British
Labour and trade union organ, this party whose creed was "anathema to the big
landlords, the big industrialists and the big financiers" seized and closed down the
workers' trade unions in Germany. It is evident that this view of Fascism as a
petit-bourgeois revolution against the big bourgeoisie is incorrect in fact, and dangerous
in the extreme to any serious understanding of the real character of Fascism and of the
fight against it. That it is incorrect in fact is manifest from the most elementary survey
of the actual history, development, basis and practice of Fascism. The open and avowed
supporters of Fascism in every country are the representatives of big capital, the
Thyssens, Krupps, Monds, Deterdings and Owen Youngs. Fascism, although in the early stages
making a show of vague and patently disingenuous anti-capitalist propaganda to attract
mass- support, is from the outset fostered, nourished, maintained and subsidised by the
big bourgeoisie, by the big landlords, financiers and industrialists.* Further, Fascism is
only enabled to grow, and is saved from being wiped out in the early stages by the
working-class move

*See Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock Back, 1933, P. I 17, for a characteristic report of
a private conversation of a leading Jewish banker in Berlin who "to a somewhat
bewildered gathering in a drawing-room in plutocratic Berlin unctuously explained how for
years he had been a heavy subsidiser of the National Socialists." Ile financial
backing of Hitler by big industry was already laid bare in the HitlerLudendorff trial of
1924 and in the Bavarian Diet Investigation Committee. "In later years the list of
the alleged financial patrons of the National Socialist Movement became extremely long.
Factory owners, managers, general  counsel (syndici) were as thick as they might be
on the subscription list of the Republican National Committee in the United States"
(Mowrer, p. 144). Foreign supporters were stated to include Deterding, Kreuger and Ford.
Paul Faure stated in the French Chamber of Deputies on February 11, 1932, that the foreign
financial backers of the Nazis included the directors of the Skoda armaments firm,
controlled by Schneider-Creusot. The reader should consult Ernst Henri's Hitler Over
Europe (1934) for the most detailed examination of the financial backing and control of
National Socialism since 1927 by the Ruhr Steel Trust elements dominated by Thyssen:
"Thyssen persuaded the two political centres of German Ruhr capital, the
'Bergbauverein Essen' and the 'Nordwestgruppe der Eisen-und Stahlindustrie' to agree that
every coal and steel concern had, by way of a particular obligatory tax, to deliver a
certain sum into the election funds of the National Socialists. In order to raise this
money, the price of coal was raised in Germany. For the Presidential elections of 1932
alone Thyssen provided the Nazis with more than 3 million marks within a few days. Without
this help the fantastic measures resorted to by the Hitler agitation in the years
1930-1(33 would never have been possible" (pp. 11-12). For the general policy, see
the statement of the Deutsche Fiihrerbriefe, or confidential bulletin of the Federation of
German Industries, quoted in the next chapter.

MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLUTION OR DICTATORSHIP 101

ment, solely through the direct protection of the bourgeois dictatorship. Fascism is
able to count on the assistance of the greater part of the State forces, of the higher
army staffs, of the police authorities, and of the lawcourts and magistracy, who exert all
their force to crush working-class opposition, while treating Fascist illegality with open
connivance (banning of the Red Front alongside permission of the Storm Troops).* Finally,
has Fascism "conquered power" from the bourgeois state dictatorship? Fascism has
never "conquered power" in any country. In every case Fascism has been placed in
power from above by the bourgeois dictatorship. In Italy Fascism was placed in power by
the King, who refused to sign the decree of martial law against it, and invited Mussolini
to power; Mussolini's legendary  "March on Rome" took place in a Wagon-Lit
sleeping-car. In Germany Fascism was placed in power by the President, at a time when it
was heavily sinking in support in the country, as shown by the elections. The bourgeoisie,
in fact, has in practice passed power from one hand to the other, and called it a
"revolution," while the only reality has been the intensified oppression of the
working class. After the establishment of the full Fascist dictatorship, the policy has
been still more openly and completely, despite a

* For the protection of Fascism by the lawcourts and police, and savage vindictiveness
against all working-class defence, see Mowrer, op. cit., Ch. xviii. For the same process
in Italy, see Salvemini, The Fascist Dictatorship, Vol. 1. Salvemini relat es (P. 71 how
in 1920 the Liberal Giolitti Cabinet, with Bonomi, the Reformist Socialist, as Minister
for War, "thought that the Fascist offensive might be utilised to break the strength
of the Socialists and Communists" and "therefore allowed the chiefs of the Army
to equip the Fascists with rifles and lorries and authorised retired officers and
officers-on-leave to command them." The "March on Rome" was led by six Army
Generals (P. 153). The pro-Fascist Survey of Fascism, 1928, admits that Fascism in Italy
grew up "not without a certain toleration and even some assistance from high
quarters" (P. 38). Mowrer confesses himself unable to understand why the pre-Fascist
governments in Germany tolerated the growth of Fascism. "It is inconceivable that any
German Chancellor, even a clerical militarist like Heinrich Bruning, should have allowed
the constitution and training of such a force, armed or unarmed. Why he did so has never
been satisfactorily settled-perhaps never will be" (p. 277). There is no mystery, no
more with Bruning than with Giolitti, once the class realities of bourgeois policy and
Fascism are clearly understood. In Germany, the officers who led the Kapp Putsch were
never sentenced; a worker who shot a Kapp rebel was sentenced to fifteen years hard
labour. Hitler, for his armed revolt against the State in 1923, was given a light sentence
of detention, and released in a few months. The beginnings of the same process of
discrimination by the lawcourts, with leniency to the early hooliganism of the nascent
Fascist movements and savage sentencing of workers' attempts at self-defence, are already
visible in Britain. 

102 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

show of a few gestures of assistance to small capital, the most unlimited and ruthless
policy of monopolist capital, with the whole machinery of Fascism mercilessly turned
against those of its former supporters who have been innocent enough to expect some anti-
capitalist action and called for a "second revolution." *

Fascism, in short, is a movement of mixed elements, dominantly petit-bourgeois, but
also slum-proletarian and demoralised working class, financed and directed by
financecapital, by the big industrialists, landlords and financiers, to defeat the
working-class revolution and smash the workingclass organisations.

* The argument sometimes put forward that the elimination of Hugenberg from the Nazi-
National Government represented a breach between the Nazis and Big Capital, and the defeat
of the latter, is a childishly superficial attempt to substitute the fate of an individual
for the really decisive social forces. Hugenberg was removed from the Nazi-National
Government, not because he was a big capitalist, but because he was the leader of the
National Party, and the completed Fascist system cannot tolerate the existence of two
parties. Certainly, this reflects an undoubted and sharp division within the bourgeoisie,
between the alternative methods of maintaining bourgeois rule, between the old traditional
National Party mechanism and the new Nazi Party mechanism, to the necessity of which a
great part of the bourgeoisie have only reconciled themselves with many misgivings and
much anxiety for the future. But the Nazi method remains a method, although a hazardous
one, of maintaining the rule of finance-capital. Financecapital remains supreme, as was
abundantly shown by the composition of the Provisional Supreme Economic Council appointed
under the aegis of the Nazi Government. Its leading members included;

This glittering galaxy of the leaders of German finance-capital is sufficient proof of
the relations of the Nazis and finance-capital. The subsequent further reorganisation of
German industry, announced in March 1934, in twelve industrial groups, under the control
of the principal large capitalists in each group, and under the general leadership, for
heavy industry and also for industry as a whole, of Herr Krupp von Bohlen, has still more
conspicuously illustrated this process of systematisation of Nazi rule as the most
complete and even statutory domination of Monopoly Capital.

103 THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE PROLETARIAT

3. The Middle Class and the Proletariat.

This question of the role of the middle class or petitbourgeoisie, in relation to the
working class and to the big bourgeoisie, is so important for the whole dynamic of present
capitalist society and the social revolution, that it deserves fuller clearing.

The controversy over the role of the middle class, or many and varied intermediate
strata between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (small business men, small and middle
peasantry, handicraftsmen, independent workers, small rentiers, liberal professions,
technical, managerial and commercial employees) is no new one. In the nineteenth century
Marx had dealt very fully with the economic and political situation and tendencies of
these elements. He had shown how these middle elements were increasingly ground between
the advance of large capital and of the proletariat, with growing numbers from their ranks
falling into proletarian or semi-proletarian conditions; he had shown their vacillating
and unstable political role, now siding with the bourgeoisie and now with the proletariat,
torn between their bourgeois prejudices, traditions and aspirations, and the actual
process  of ruination and proletarisation at work among them; and he had shown how
the proletariat should win the alliance of the lower strata of the peasantry and urban
petit-bourgeoisie under its leadership in order to conquer power.

In the beginning of the imperialist era the question of the middle class was anew
raised sharply to the forefront by Bernstein and the Revisionists in the last years of the
nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth. The Revisionists challenged
Marx's teaching of the increasing proletarisation of the middle strata and consequent
increasing sharpness of the issue between capitalism and the proletariat. On the contrary,
they argued that the middle class was growing, and pointed to the figures of income
returns, property returns and shareholding, to prove the growth of the middle class. On
this basis they denied Marx's revolutionary teaching, saw instead the increasing harmony
of classes and democratisation of capital, and looked to the gradual peaceful advance
towards socialism through capitalist reorganisation, social reform and State intervention.

What the Revisionists really represented, as is now abundantly clear, was the o wth of
the "new middle class" of

104 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

salaried employees of capitalism. In fact the process predicted by Marx was abundantly
realised through the course of the nineteenth century. The concentration of capital went
forward at an increasing pace. Large-scale capital pressed small-scale capital to the
wall. The former small owners and independent workers became, as Marx said,
"overseers and underlings." In this way a "new middle class" came more
and more to the front, based on the increasing disappearance of the old independent small
owners. This new middle class resembled the old in its two-faced position and outlook,
between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and its dreams of occupying an
"independent" position above the class struggle; but it was already dependent
for its livelihood on employment under large capital, and no longer primarily on its own
property. Thus the development of this new middle class was in fact a stage in the process
of proletarisation, in the increasing divorce of the everwidening mass of the population
from an independent property basis; and its lower strata began to draw closer to the
proletariat and to the proletarian movement (beginnings of "middleclass" trade
unionism, recruiting to social democracy). The distinctive outlook of this new middle
class was typically expressed in England by Fabianism and the leadership of the
Independent Labour Party.

Against the Revisionists, the Marxists were easily able to show,  not only that
the development of this new middle class increasingly replacing the old was in reality a
phase of the process of proletarisation, but that further economic development was in turn
affecting the position of this new middle class, and creating a crisis in its ranks and a
new stage of proletarisation. The overstocking of the professional market, the turning out
from the universities and technical schools of increasing numbers beyond the possibilities
of employment, and the cutting down of personnel through the further concentration of
businesses, was already before the war creating a more and more sharp crisis of the new
middle class.

This crisis of the middle class (both old and new) has been carried enormously forward
in the post-war period. The operations of finance-capital-inflation, currency and exchange
manipulations, share-juggling, monopoly prices and heavy taxation-have played havoc with
small savings and investments, and with the old stability of middle-class incomes. At

THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE PROLETARIAT 105

the same time unemployment and redundancy in all the professions has reached desperate
heights.

"Throughout the Continent," wrote Keynes in his Treatise on Monetary Reform
(p. 16), "pre-war savings of the middle class, so far as they were invested in bonds,
mortgages or bank deposits, have been largely or entirely wiped out." The German
property valuation returns showed that the number of those owning from thirty to fifty
thousand marks worth of property L1,500 to 2,500) fell from over 500,000 in 1913 to
216,000 in 1925; owners of from fifty to a hundred thousand marks L2,500 to 15,000) fell
from nearly 400,000 in 1913 to 136,000 in 1925. Although, despite the disillusionment of
the wiping out of their savings by inflation, the middle class began hopefully to save
anew after stabilisation, the total of savings rapidly began to fall after the economic
crisis, and is now threatened anew by the new wave of world inflation. In Britain, a
marked decline in small savings is noticeable in the post-war period even before the world
economic crisis. Thus while in 1909-13 the Post Office Savings Bank accounts registered a
net increase Of ;E12 million, in 1923-7 they registered a net decrease of 117 million, as
well as a net decrease of government securities standing to their holders' credit by I IS
million, or a total decline of L35 million; Trustee Savings' Banks showed a net decline of
;112 million; after allowing against this, the net increase in National Savings
Certificates in the same period by ;E14 million, there is still left a total loss in these
main forms of small savings between 1923-7 Of L33 million (Economist, February 23, 1929).

If the impoverishment of the small middle class alongside the enrichment of monopoly
capital is thus a characteristic feature of the  post-war period, even more so is
the increasingly desperate situation of overcrowding in the professions. The world
economic crisis brought this situation to an extreme point.

In Germany, it was reported that of 8,000 graduates from the technical colleges and
universities in 1931-2, Only 1,000 found employment in their professions. According to a
statement issued by the Prussian Minister of Education, Of 22,000 teachers who completed
their training in 193 1-2, only 990 found posts. "Engineers have become mere
wage-earners; while of the technical school engineering graduates only one in five found
any job at all" (H. H. Tiltman, Slump, 1932, P. 75).

106 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

R. Schairer in Die Akademische Berufsnot, 1932, reported that 45,000 graduated students
were unemployed, and that this figure, it was estimated, would, in the absence of remedial
measures, reach 105,000 by 1935. Here we can see a large part of the social basis for the
desperate armies of Fascism.

The impoverished and desperate middle class is driven from its former philistine
slumbers into political activity. But this political activity takes on a new character.
Whereas the Bernsteinian dreams had seen in the middle class a stabilising and harmonising
factor in the social structure, wedded to liberalism and social reform, and smoothing over
the antagonism of classes, the new dispossessed and ruined middle-class elements break out
as an extremely unstable, violent force potentially revolutionary or, alternately,
ultra-reactionary, without dear social basis or consciousness, but recklessly seeking any
line of immediate action, which may offer a hope of immediate relief (relief from debts,
State aid to small businesses, smashing the large stores, etc.) or the prospect of jobs
(the new bureaucracy, mercenary fighting forces, displacement of Jews, war).

In what direction, however, can these middle-class elements turn their political
activity? They can in practice only line up in the service of either finance-capital or of
the proletariat. The myth of their "independent" role, of the "third
party," is still endeavoured to be hung before them. The Liberal Yellow Book,
characteristically enough, endeavoured to make much of "the third party in
industry" as the force of the future. But these dreams are soon shattered by reality.
For the ownership of the means of production is decisive, and to this the middle class can
never aspire. Either finance-capital, owning the means of production, can seek to make the
middle class its auxiliary, giving a measure of employment, if diminishingly in
production, then at any rate increasingly in the tasks of violent coercion of the working
class (fascist militia, police-officer class, fascist bureaucracy). Or the 
proletariat, socialising the means of production, can at last give full scope to all the
useful trained and technical abilities within the middle class in the gigantic tasks of
social reconstruction. These are the only two alternatives before the middle class. The
first is the line of Fascism. The second is the line of Communism.

The true interests of the majority of the middle class, of all the

THE DEFINITION OF FASCISM 107

lower strata of the middle class, lie with the proletariat, with the line of Communism.
Finance-capital is the enemy and exploiter of both sections. The line of Fascism of
service with finance-capital against the working class, means in fact no solution for the
economic crisis of the middle class; alongside privileges and rewards for a handful, it
means intensified servitude, oppression and spoliation of the majority of the middle class
at the hands of the great trusts and banks.

Where the working-class movement is strong, follows a revolutionary line, and is able
to stand out as the political leader of the fight of all oppressed sections against large
capital, there the mass of the petit-bourgeoisie is swept in the wake of the working
class. This was the general situation in the postwar revolutionary wave of 1919-20. During
this time Fascism could win no hold.

But where the working-class movement fails to realise its revolutionary role, follows
the leadership of Reformism and thus surrenders to large capital, and even appears to
enter into collaboration with it, there the discontented petit-bourgeois elements and
declassed proletarian elements begin to look elsewhere for their leadership. On this basis
Fascism is able to win its hold. In the name of demagogic slogans against large capital
and exploiting their grievances, these elements are drawn in practice into the service of
large capital.

4. The Definition of Fascism.

Fascism is often spoken of as a consequence of Communism. "Reaction of the 'Left,'
" declared the Labour Manifesto on "Democracy and Dictatorship" in 1933,
"is displaced by triumphant reaction of the 'Right."' With strikingly similar
identity of outlook to the Labour Party, the Conservative leader, Baldwin, also declared:
"Fascism is begotten of Communism out of civil discord. Whenever you get Communism
and civil discord, you get Fascism" (House of Commons, November 23, 1933).

This picture is a fully misleading picture. Undoubtedly, the  parallel advance of
the forces of revolution and counterrevolution represents in fact the two sides of the
single process of the break- up of capitalism; the continuous interaction of the opposing
forces of revolution and counter-revolution was long ago described by Marx. But the
inference attempted to be

108 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

drawn from this that, if the working class follows the line of Communism, then Fascism
will triumph, is the direct opposite of historical experience. The reality shows the exact
contrary.

Where the majority of the working class has followed the line of Reformism (Germany,
Italy, etc.), there at a certain stage Fascism invariably grows and conquers.

What is the character of that stage? That stage arises when the breakdown of the old
capitalist institutions and the advance of working- class movement has reached a point at
which the working class should advance to the seizure of power, but when the working class
is held in by reformist leadership.

In that case . owing to the failure of decisive working-class leadership to rally all
discontented strata, the discredited old regime is able to draw to its support under
specious quasirevolutionary slogans all the wavering elements, petit-bourgeoisie, backward
workers, etc., and on the very basis of the crisis and discontent which should have given
allies to the revolution, build up the forces of reaction in the form of Fascism. The
continued hesitation and retreat of the reformist working-class leadership at each point
(policy of the "lesser evil") encourages the growth of Fascism. On this basis
Fascism is able finally to step in and seize the reins, not through its own strength, but
through the failure of working-class leadership. The collapse of bourgeois democracy is
succeeded, not by the advance to proletarian democracy, but by the regression to fascist
dictatorship.*

We are now in a position to reach our general definition of the character of Fascism,
the conditions of its development and its class- rule. This definition has received its
most complete scientific expression in the Programme of the Communist International in
1928:

Under certain special historical conditions the progress of the bourgeois, imperialist,
reactionary offensive assumes the form of Fascism.

These conditions are: instability of capitalist relationships; the

*Reference may be made to the present writer's suggested definition of the conditions
of the advance to Fascism, written in 1025: "Fascism arises where a powerful
working-class movement reaches a stage of growth which inevitably raises revolutionary
issues, but is held in from decisive action by reformist leadership. . . . Fascism is the
child of Reformism" (Labour Monthly, July 1925). The subsequent events in Germany
have abundantly Illustrated the truth of this.

THE DEFINITION OF FASCISM 109

existence of considerable declassed social elements, the pauperisation of broad strata
of the urban petit-bourgeoisie and of the intelligentsia; discontent among the rural
petit-bourgeoisie, and, finally, the constant menace of mass proletarian action. In order
to stabilise and perpetuate its rule the bourgeoisie is compelled to an increasing degree
to abandon the parliamentary system in favour of the fascist system, which is independent
of inter-party arrangements and combinations.

The Fascist system is a system of direct dictatorship, ideologically masked by the
"national idea" and representation of the "professions" (in reality,
representation of the various groups of the ruling class). It is a system that resorts to
a peculiar form of social demagogy (anti- Semitism, occasional sorties against usurer's
capital and gestures of impatience with the parliamentary "talking shop") in
order to utilise the discontent of the petit- bourgeois, the intellectual and other strata
of society; and to corruption through the building up of a compact and well-paid hierarchy
of Fascist units, a party apparatus and a bureaucracy. At the same time, Fascism strives
to permeate the working class by recruiting the most backward strata of the workers to its
ranks, by playing upon their discontent, by taking advantage of the inaction of Social
Democracy, etc.

The principal aim of Fascism is to destroy the revolutionary labour vanguard, i.e., the
Communist sections and leading units of the proletariat. The combination of social
demagogy, corruption and active White terror, in conjunction with extreme imperialist
aggression in the sphere of foreign politics, are the characteristic features of Fascism.
In periods of acute crisis for the bourgeoisie, Fascism resorts to anti- capitalist
phraseology, but, after it has established itself at the helm of State, it casts aside its
anti-capitalist rattle, and discloses itself as a terrorist dictatorship of big capital.

Alongside of this may be placed the parallel analysis of Fascism in the Resolution on
the International Situation of the same Sixth Congress of the Communist International in
1928:

The characteristic feature of Fascism is that, as a consequence of  the shock
suffered by the capitalist economic system and of special objective and subjective
circumstances, the bourgeoisie-in order to hinder the development of the
revolution-utilises the discontent of the petty and middle, urban and rural bourgeoisie
and even of certain strata of the declassed proletariat, for the purpose of creating a
reactionary mass movement.

Fascism resorts to methods of open violence in order to break the power of the labour
organisations and those of the peasant poor, and to proceed to capture power.

110 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

After capturing power, Fascism strives to establish political and organisational unity
among all the governing classes of capitalist society (the bankers, the big industrialists
and the agrarians), and to establish their undivided, open and consistent dictatorship. It
places at the disposal of the governing classes armed forces specially trained for civil
war, and establishes a new type of State, openly based on violence, coercion and
corruption, not only of the petitbourgeois strata, but even of certain elements of the
working class (office employees, ex-reformist leaders who have become government
officials, trade union officials and officials of the Fascist Party, and also poor
peasants and declassed proletarians recruited into the Fascist militia).

The further characteristics of Fascism indicated in the above analysis, both in respect
of its advance to power, and of its programme and practice after power, it will now be
necessary to examine.

IN the light of this general understanding of the character and role of Fascism, and of
the conditions of its development, it is now possible to examine more closely the concrete
historical manifestations of Fascism, and, in particular, its development in Italy and
Germany.

For this purpose it is necessary first to review the conditions of the 
transition to Fascism in these countries. It is then necessary to examine more closely the
programme and practice of Fascism, especially as demonstrated in these two leading
countries.

I. The Priority of Italian Fascism.

Why did Fascism, the outstanding development of modern capitalist policy, develop its
first distinctive and complete form in Italy, a secondary capitalist country?

The question bears a certain analogy to the question often asked why the world
proletarian revolution should have conquered first, not in the most advanced capitalist
country, but in the relatively less-developed Russia.

In both cases a general world development of the imperialist epoch first reached its
specific form, not at the main centres of world imperialism, but at that point where the
complex of conditions, of extreme contradictions, made its appearance first possible, and
only more slowly spread beyond the original country.

The reasons for the opening of the world socialist revolution in Russia have long been
cleared. Russia was the weakest link of world imperialism: it represented the combination,
on the one side, of the weakest bourgeoisie and of the greatest corruption and collapse of
the old regime; and on the other side, of the most politically developed proletariat, of
the highest proportion of the proletariat in large-scale industry and of the most
conscious and highly trained revolutionary party of the proletariat in established
leadership of the majority of the workers.

112 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The case of Italy and Fascism is more complex. In fact, embryonic forms of Fascism
already developed in other countries before Italy, notably in Finland, Hungary, Poland and
Germany. But it was in Italy that Fascism was first elaborated into a complete system and
became during the succeeding decade the recognised principal model. Why was this? We have
seen that Fascism develops where the proletarian revolution draws visibly close, but is
held in by reformist leadership. This was certainly the case in Italy after the war. But
in the immediate post-war period did not the proletarian revolution far more closely
threaten in Germany than in Italy? Why then the difference, and the very much later
development of Fascism in Germany?

The answer lies, not only in the very much greater strength and long- drawn resistance
of the German proletariat, but in the basic difference of conditions of the revolutionary
movement in the two countries. In  Germany a mass-revolution took place; but the
Social Democracy was able to retain control of the main body of the working-class
movement, and to rob the revolution of its fruits. In Italy, on the other band, there was
only the menace of a revolution; but the old Social Democratic leadership lost effective
control of the mass movement. In consequence, the methods of the bourgeoisie in the two
countries necessarily differed.

In Germany the proletarian revolution actually overthrew the old regime in 1918; but
the workers were robbed of the fruits of their victory by the Social Democratic
leadership. The task of the bourgeoisie in the first stage became to limit the successful
revolution, whose victory could not for the moment be questioned. For this purpose the
direct governmental leadership of Social Democracy was essential to the bourgeoisie as the
sole salvation. Only later, as the influence of Social Democracy weakened, and the menace
of the proletarian revolution grew, in spite of and against Social Democracy, did the
German bourgeoisie require to bring into play the additional weapon of Fascism against the
working class.

In Italy, on the other hand, no revolution took place after the war, but only a mass
revolutionary wave of great powerthe highest mass revolutionary wave of those countries
(the victor countries) where the war was not followed by revolution. There was no question
of strangling an already victorious

113 SOCIALISM IN ITALY

mass revolution by setting Social Democracy in power as the supposed leadership and
voice of the triumphant revolution. The government remained throughout directly in the
hands of the bourgeoisie. But the old Social Democratic leadership lost control of the
mass movement, which was rapidly advancing to revolution. The task for the bourgeoisie
became to prevent the menacing proletarian revolution. For this purpose Social Democracy
could serve as the brake to disorganise the workers' forces. But to smash the workers'
forces Fascism was necessary. In contrast to Britain and France, the mass revolutionary
wave after the war in Italy was so high as to make the bourgeois democratic forms
inadequate; extraordinary forms had to be brought into play. But it was not so high as to
reach to open insurrection and overthrow of the government, and to the necessity of the
bourgeoisie making a show of surrendering power. The bourgeoisie only required to change
the forms and methods of its power. For this reason Italy, despite the lower level of
revolutionary development than Germany, gave the first example of the new Fascist
dictatorship, to which Germany only reached later. Italian Fascism revealed Fascism as a
species of preventive count  revolution.

2. Socialism in Italy.

The relatively backward economic development of Italy meant that the industrial
proletariat, especially in large industry, was proportionately much weaker than in the
leading industrial countries, such as Germany, Britain and the United States. Of the 16.8
million occupied persons recorded in the 191 1 census, 9 millions, or 54 per cent., were
recorded as engaged in agriculture and fisheries; 243,000 industrial establishments were
recorded as employing 2.3 million workers. The 1927 Census of Industries reported 2.9
million industrial workers in manufacturing production; but 1 -5 millions of these were
employed in establishments of less than 10 workers; only 695 factories bad over 500
workers, with a total of 692,000 workers.

Nevertheless, the dominant numerical strength of the industrial and agricultural
proletariat combined, especially together with the poor peasantry, should not be
under-estimated. On the basis of the 1911 census statistics it was calculated that of

114 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the 16.8 million occupied persons the agricultural proletariat numbered 6.2 millions,
and the proletariat in industry and transport 4 millions, or a total of over To millions
or over 60 per cent.

Further, Socialism, on the basis of a revolutionary programme, reached an overwhelming
mass support after the war. The Italian Socialist Party, previously weak and dominated by
reformism and collaborationist policies until 1910, began to move to the left in the fight
against the Tripoli war in 19 11 ; in 19 12 it strengthened itself by expelling the
chauvinist reformists, under Bonomi and Bissolati, at the Reggio Emilia Congress;
thereafter the membership, previously dwindling from 36,000 in 1906 to 24,000 in 1910,
shot up from 27,000 in 1912 to 48,000 in 19114. Thus strengthened, and with the added
advantage of a delayed entry of Italy into the war only after a protracted dispute which
divided also the bourgeoisie, the Italian Socialist Party was not swept in the wake of the
war, but took the Zimmerwald line; it emerged from the war with an increased membership Of
70,000 and high popularity and prestige.

The revolutionary wave after the war reached very great heights in Italy, affecting all
strata, the industrial workers, the demobilised soldiers, the agricultural proletariat and
the poor peasantry. A widespread strike movement developed, both economic and political,
land seizures by the peasantry, etc. The Socialist Party affiliated to the 
Communist International in March 1919, by executive decision, which was confirmed by an
overwhelming majority at the Bologna Congress in October. On this basis the Party went to
the elections in November 1919, on a Communist programme of dictatorship of the
proletariat and soviets, and for this programme won over one-third of the total vote of
the whole population, emerging as the strongest party with 156 seats Out Of 508-at the
same time as Mussolini and his Fascists were unable to win a single seat. The membership
of the Party rose to 200,000, and of the Confederation of Labour, which was allied to the
Party, to two millions. At the municipal elections in 1920 the Party won control of over
2,000 Communes, or one-third of the total. At the height of the revolutionary wave the
Government was powerless to act, as shown in its passivity during the occupation of the
factories in 1920, since it could not count on the support of the military forces. The
expectation of the social revolution was general.

SOCIALISM -IN -ITALY 115

Nevertheless, no revolution took place, because there was no decisive revolutionary
leadership. As the Executive Committe of the Communist International wrote in October
1920:

The P.S.I. (Italian Socialist Party) acts with too much hesitation. It is not the Party
which leads the masses, but the masses which push the Party. . . . In Italy there exist
all the necessary conditions for a victorious revolution except one-a good working-class
organisation.

The truth of this was abundantly shown in 1919-20. No Communist Party existed until 192
1, when the main revolutionary wave had passed. Anarchist and syndicalist tendencies and
confusions on the one side, reformism in control of the principal mass organisations on
the other, and a passive, hesitating centrist leadership between- this constituted the
main picture of the leadership of the Italian working class during the revolutionary wave.
Although the Italian Socialist Party had affiliated to the Communist International in
1919, it retained at the very heart of the leadership, in control of the most strategic
points, convinced enemies of Communism, the old reformist leadership under Turati and
D'Aragona, who had dominated the party until 1910. These bad no longer more than a small
following among the workers, as Congress votes showed; but they were strong at the certre,
dominating the parliamentary group and controlling the official machinery of the
Confederation of Labour. They remained in the party, despite the adoption of the Communist
programme, openly in order to defeat the revolutionary line. As one of their leaders,
Prampolini, explained at the Conference of the reformist wing in September 1922:  By
remaining in the Party we were able to fulfil our duty as Socialists. It would have been
quite impossible for us to have accomplished outside the Party the task we accomplished
inside.

It was manifest that if the party were to achieve its task of revolutionary leadership,
the first necessity was to remove the enemies of the revolution from the strategic leading
positions and replace them by revolutionaries. On this demand the Executive Committee of
the Communist International, under the leadership of Lenin, conscious of the impending
danger in Italy if this were not carried out, exerted the whole of its pressure and

116 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

authority. The Executive long urged, and finally by the summer of 1920, when the matter
was too serious for further parleying, demanded in the name of the whole international
movement, the expulsion of Turati and the reformist leadership. But the centrist
leadership under Serrati refused, and the fate of the Italian revolution was sealed for
many years to come. The issue came to a head at the Second Congress of the Communist
International in August 1920; Serrati set himself in opposition to Lenin and to the whole
international leadership, preferring unity with Turati and the reformists to unity with
International Communism; and the bulk of the party under his leadership passed out of the
International. The break followed at the Livorno Congress in January 192 1; Serrati and
the centrists had a following of 98,000, Turati and the reformists 14,ooo, and the
Communists 58,000, who thereon formed the Italian Communist Party. Serrati and his wing,
who styled themselves "unity Communists," were appealed to by the Communists to
unite with them in a single Communist Party, which would have thus constituted go per
cent. of the old party, freed from reformism; but they preferred unity with the 14,000
reformists to unity with 58,000 Communists. Thus the workers' ranks were broken.

Two years later, on the very eve of Mussolini's coming to power, Serrati was compelled
to recognise his fatal error; at the Rome Congress of the now weakened and dwindled
Socialist Party in the beginning of October 1922, the Serrati leadership finally carried
through the expulsion of Turati and the reformists, now grown to nearly half the
membership, and applied for re-admission to the Communist International. "Our
fault," declared Serrati at this Congress, "is that we never sufficiently
prepared ourselves for the events that have overtaken us. . . . To-day we believe it
essential to abandon the democratic illusion, and to create a combative, active and
audacious Party." But it was then too late; the irreparable harm had been done;
within four weeks Mussolini was in power. As the message of the Communist 
International to the Rome Congress declared:

He cannot be called a leader of the proletarian masses who with great effort and after
the lapse of several years comes to a correct conclusion, but rather he who can detect a
tendency at its birth and can warn the workers in time of the peril that menaces them.

WAS REVOLUTION POSSIBLE IN ITALY?

3. Was Revolution Possible in Italy?

This understanding of the inner situation of Italian Socialism during the critical
years 1919-1922 is essential for the understanding of the failure of the Italian
revolution during those years, despite the favourable conditions and the readiness and
self-sacrifice of the masses, and the resulting advance and victory of Fascism.

The revolutionary wave of 19 19-2 0 spent itself in a conf usion of unorganised partial
struggles and demonstrations without decisive leadership or concentrated aim. The
Socialist Party leadership gave out the watchword: "The Revolution is not made. The
Revolution comes." Under cover of this fatal nonMarxist conception the responsibility
of leadership was in fact abandoned. The energy and self-sacrifice of the masses went to
waste in fruitless unco-ordinated actions.

The final climax of the revolutionary wave was reached with the occupation of the
factories in Northern Italy in September 1920. This action of the workers was undertaken
in response to a lock-out begun by the employers and threatening to be made general.
Beginning from the metallurgical industry in Milan at the end of August, it spread to all
industries until by September 3 half a million workers were in unchallenged occupation of
the factories, establishing their own workers' committees and armed guards. The government
and employers were powerless. The troops could not be counted on to act against the
workers. The classic conditions of revolution were present. The Prime Minister, Giolitti,
temporised. The extra-legal Fascist formations were then only an impotent handful, and
found it more prudent to applaud the workers' movement from a distance, proclaiming
noisily their "sympathy" for the occupation in which they had no part, and which
Mussolini declared in his journal to be "a great revolution" (Popolo d'Italia,
September 2 8, 19 2 0).

The bourgeoisie in this situation could only count on the reformist leadership to save
them. But the reformist leadership did not fail them. It was obvious that the occupation
of the factories, if it remained a passive economic movement, with political power
remaining in the hands of the bourgeoisie, could only end in stultification and failure.
The condition of victory was that the movement begun by the  occupation of the
factories should be extended to the conquest of political power by the

118 FASCISM AM SOCIAL REVOLUTION

workers, which the bourgeoisie was then powerless to resist. just this the reformists
resisted, insisting on confining the movement as "purely an economic movement"
(the same tactics as in the British General Strike in 1926), and negotiating with the
Government for a settlement. The critical decision was taken on September II at a combined
conference of the Socialist Party and the Confederation of Labour; by a vote of 591,245 to
409,569 control was placed in the hands of the Confederation of Labour, that is, of the
reformist leadership. The reformist leadership entered into immediate negotiations with
Giolitti; and on September 19 a settlement was reached, by which evacuation of the
factories was conceded in return for a 20 per cent. wage increase and a promise of a share
of "workers' control" in industry (the promise went the way of all such
promises; the subsequent joint commission established to work out the details of the
scheme broke down; finally, the Government in 192 1 introduced an emasculated Bill of
Labour Control, similar to the German Works Councils Act). The essence of the settlement
was the evacuation of the factories. The reformist leaders ordered the workers to leave
the factories. What neither the employers, nor the Government, nor the police, nor the
armed forces could effect, this was effected by the reformist leadership-to get the
workers out of the factories and hand them back to capitalism.

Was the victory of the working-class revolution in Italy possible in the situation of
September 1920? Of this there can be no doubt in the united evidence of all parties. The
liberal anti-fascist historian, Salvemini, who is mainly concerned for the purposes of his
argument to minimise the revolutionary issues of the situation in Italy before Fascism in
order to deny this bourgeois "justification" of Fascism, nevertheless writes of
this period:

Had the leaders of the General Confederation of Labour and of the Socialist Party
wished to strike a decisive blow, here was the opportunity. . . . The bankers, the big
industrialists and big landlords waited for the social revolution as sheep wait to be led
to the slaughter. If a Communist revolution could be brought about by bewilderment and
cowardice on the part of the ruling classes, the Italian people in September, 1920, could
have made as many Communist revolutions as they wished.

(G. Salvemini, The Fascist Dictatorship, 1928, Vol. 1, P. 41.)



WAS REVOLUTION POSSIBLE IN ITALY? 119

The leading Italian journal, the Corriere della Sera, wrote at the time in its issue of
September 29, 1920:

Italy has been in peril of collapse. There has been no revolution, not because there
was anyone to bar its way, but because the General Confederation of Labour has not wished
it.

The reformist leadership themselves boasted of having averted revolution by their
action, and thereafter, in exactly the same way as the German reformists later, complained
bitterly of the ingratitude of the bourgeoisie in repaying their services by the blows of
Fascism:

"But after we bad the honour," stated the Secretary of the General
Confederation of Labour in a speech delivered two years after the occupation of the
factories, "of preventing a revolutionary catastrophe- Fascism arrived." (Daily
Herald, April 12, 1928.)

Thus in the agreed testimony of the bourgeoisie and of the reformists alike, the
Communist revolution was fully possible in Italy in September 1920, and was only prevented
by the reformist leadership. Fascism played no part in this.

It was only after the revolution was already defeated, after the working-class ranks
were disorganised and disillusioned by the reformist betrayal, after this had begun to
show itself in a rapid collapse of membership and organisation, that then Fascism stepped
forward to show its prowess in beating the already defeated workers.

The surrender of the factories took place in September 1920. From that point the
Italian working-class movement went downwards. "After the occupation of the factories
in September 1920, the idea spread among the people that the revolution had failed, and
they grew discouraged" (Salvemini, op. Cit., P. 43). The membership of the party and
of the trade unions began rapidly to fall (the party membership fell from 216,000 in 1920
to 170,000 in January 1921).

In November 1020, the first Fascist terrorist action of blood and fire against the
workers was launched at Bologna.

The sequence of dates is obvious. The Fascist jackal strikes only the already wounded
proletarian lion. Fascism was not the weapon of defence of the bourgeoisie against the
advancing proletarian offensive, but the vengeance of the bourgeoisie against the
retreating proletariat, after reformism had broken the workers' ranks, to follow up the
victory by smashing the working-class organisations.



120 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

4. The Growth and Victory of Fascism.

Fascism had existed in germ in Italy since the beginning of 1919-in fact since the
hired interventionist campaign of 1915. The former Socialist Party agitator, Mussolini,
who had throughout his career performed a doubtful role of advocacy of bomb attentats,
Herveist extravagance, etc., changed his coat with the usual celerity of social
chauvinists, and passed within a few weeks from editing the Socialist anti-war A vanti,
wherein he had denounced the "bourgeois war" during August and September, to
founding, with French Government funds, the interventionist Popolo d'Italia in November.
The Fasci di Azione Interventista, which he founded at Milan in 1915, were the nucleus of
future Fascism. After the war Mussolini and his followers, their previous campaigning
basis gone with the end of the war, sought for a new one, and founded the first Fascio di
Combattimento at Milan in March 1919, on a confused chauvinist, republican and
revolutionary- sounding programme. This was the official starting-point of Fascism. The
Fasci were constituted a political party in December 11920.

During 1919 and up to the autumn of 1920, that is, during the revolutionary wave,
Fascism had no strength or popular support. The official authorities encouraged it; the
Popolo d'Italia was distributed by the Army authorities free among the troops in 1919 and
192o. But Fascism could win no support. At the elections in November 1919, Fascism could
not win a seat; Mussolini received 4,795 votes in Milan against the Socialist 18o,ooo. The
total membership throughout the country was small. Fascism had to swim with the
revolutionary stream. Its programme called for the abolition of the monarchy and nobility,
confiscation of war profits, international disarmament, abolition of the stock exchanges,
the land for the peasants, workers' control of industry, etc. Its propaganda glorified
strikes, food riots, calling for the hanging of speculators, the seizure of land by the
peasantry, occupations of factories by the workers (Dalmine), and denounced the State as
the enemy-"Down with the State in all its forms!" (Popolo d'Italia, April 6,
1920).

During this period Fascism was still in preparation and had no important place among
the weapons of the bourgeoisie to meet the proletarian offensive. In the face of the
strength of the revolutionary wave the bourgeoisie had to use other

 THE GROWTH AND VICTORY OF FASCISM 121

methods. So far as an attempt was made to build up an alternative new party to counter
and outbid the Socialist Party, this attempt was concentrated on the Catholic
"Popular Party," which was constituted in 1919 with a demagogic programme, and
was utilised to split the rural proletariat and peasantry, winning 100 seats in 1919
against the Socialist 156. But the main method of the bourgeoisie was the method of
liberalism and concessions, so long as their forces were unprepared, the granting of
shorter hours, wage increases, the Labour Control Bill and similar legislation. This was
the line of the successive governments of Nitti, Giolitti, Bonomi and Facta. They
calculated on the reformist socialist leadership to break the revolutionary offensive.
Meanwhile, under cover of this policy of seeming "weakness" and retreat, they
were preparing the armed counter-revolution. The gendarmerie, or Carabinieri, were
increased from 28,000 at the end of the war to 60,000\ by the summer of 192o. A new
special force, the Royal Guard, was created, 2 5,000 strong. At the same time the Fascist
hooligan bands were being equipped and armed by the authorities.

Thus the transfer from the policy of a Giolitti to the policy of a Mussolini was no
sudden volte-face of the Italian bourgeoisie. They were the two halves of a single policy;
Mussolini was the foster-child and creation of Giolitti, just as Hitler was the
foster-child of Bruning. The task of Giolitti and the "liberal"
"democratic" governments was to fool the proletariat with sham concessions, so
long as the proletarian forces were too strong to be defeated, and assist the reformist
leadership to break them up from within. Meanwhile these "liberal"
"democratic" governments were secretly equipping and arming Fascism. When this
first stage was completed, and the proletarian forces had been disorganised by reformism,
the violent counter- revolution was let loose. The violent offensive of Fascism was
carried forward under the benevolent protection of Giolitti and his successors. This
second stage continued from the autumn of 1920 to the autumn of 1922. Reformism continued
to retreat and trust in parliamentarism for defence. When the second stage had done its
work, and the proletarian forces had been smashed and beaten up, the final transference to
open Fascism was accomplished, Giolitti and his successors peaceably made way for
Mussolini. The cycle was complete. The continuity of policy runs in practice right
through.

122 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

This mechanism of the transition to Fascism, exactly repeated in Germany, is the
essential key to the correct understanding of the real relationship of bourgeois democracy
and Fascism.

Fascism grew up and grew strong after the autumn of 1920, and was  able to
exercise its wholesale violence, only under the direct protection and assistance of the
bourgeois democratic governments, of the military authorities, of the police, of the
magistracy and of the big bourgeoisie. From the autumn of 1920 the big landlords and the
big industrialists poured support to the Fascist bands to exercise terrorism against the
peasantry and the proletariat. The membership shot up, according to Mussolini, from 20,000
in 192OtO 248,000 in 1921. The army authorities supplied arms. Professional officers
trained the bands and directed operations. The General Staff issued a circular (October
20,1920) instructing Divisional Commanders to support the Fascist organisations. The
workers and peasants were rigorously disarmed; the Fascists carried arms with impunity.
The police and gendarmerie either directly assisted the Fascists or remained passive. The
magistracy habitually subjected to savage sentences workers who attempted to defend
themselves, while releasing Fascists.

The conscious policy of Giolitti and Bonomi in permitting and supporting Fascist
violence has been already noted (p. I 0 I ). The semi- official spokesman of Fascism,
Luigi Villari, in his Awakening of Italy (p. 123) notes that Giolitti "refused to
interfere with the repressive actions of the Fascists, illegal though they were." The
pro-Fascist A. Zerboglio, in his standard 11 Fascismo, 19 2 2, wrote:

The Government more or less openly made use of Fascism.

The Socialist Press are piling up proofs of Government tolerance towards the Fascists,
and it cannot honestly be disputed that some of this evidence appears convincing.

The leading American journalist, Mowrer, recorded:

In the presence of murder, violence and arson, the police remained "neutral."
. . . When armed bands compelled the Socialists to resign from office under pain of death,
or regularly tried, and condemned their enemies to blows, banishment or execution, the
functionaries merely shrugged their shoulders. . . . Sometimes Carabineers and Royal
Guards openly made common cause with the Fascists, and paralysed the resistance of the
peasants. Against the Fascists alone the latter might have held their own. Against

THE GROWTH AND VICTORY OF FASCISM 123

the Fascists and the police together they were helpless, and their complaints merely
caused the authorities to arrest them as guilty of attempting to defend themselves.
Socialists were condemned for alleged crimes committed months, years before. Fascists
taken redbanded were released for want of evidence."  (E. A. Mowrer, Immortal
Italy, p. 361.)

And again:

From the army the Fascists received sympathy, assistance and war material. Officers in
uniform took part in the punitive expeditions. The Fascists were allowed to turn national
barracks into their private arsenals.- (Ibid., p. 144.)

Similarly the notorious advocate of Fascism, Odon Por, notes in his Fascism (p. III)
that "the Fascists had been equipped largely on the quiet, from the regular
army." Another American journalist who was in Italy in 192 1, J. Carter, reports:

The Fascisti had carte blanche to beat up their opponents throughout Italy, while the
Government pretended to be neutral.

(J. Carter, New York Times Book Review, June 12, 1927.)

One of the standard writers on Fascism, generally sympathetic, G. Prezzolini, in his Le
Fascisme, 192 5, writes (p. 97):

They could organise themselves in armed corps and kill right and left, with the
certainty of impunity and with the complicity of the police. It is thus no overstatement
to recognise that the Fascists fought with 99 chances out of 100 of gaining the victory.

The Fascist offensive of terrorism, destruction and murder, which was launched at
Bologna in November 1920, with the overthrow of the newly elected Socialist Town Council
and sacking of the Chamber of Labour, was thereafter systematically developed and
extended, with the manifest planning of a military campaign, through the industrial
region, and with wholesale sporadic violence in the agricultural areas. Socialist, trade
union and co-operative buildings, painfully erected by millions of sacrifices of a
generation of workers, were burned and sacked; workers' newspapers and printing presses
were destroyed; socialist municipal councils were expelled from office; militant workers
and peasants were beaten up or murdered. All this went forward with the connivance of the
civil authorities, who normally followed up each Fascist coup expelling a duly elected
socialist municipal council by appointing a Special Commissioner in its place. The normal
procedure when a

124 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

workers' building was threatened by the Fascists would be for a special force of armed
police or Royal Guards to appear first to "protect" it; these would search for
and remove any arms, disarm the workers in it,  and prevent any workers'
demonstration approaching it; the Fascists would then arrive with full arms, and
machine-guns; the police forces would then declare resistance impossible and retire; and
the Fascists would be left free to work their will on the defenceless building and
disarmed workers.

Between January and May 192 1, according to figures published by the Italian Socialist
Party at the time, the Fascists destroyed 120 labour headquarters, attacked 243 socialist
centres and other buildings, killed 202 workers (in addition to 44 killed by the police
and gendarmerie), and wounded 1,144. During this period 2,240 workers were arrested by the
police; 162 Fascists were arrested. During 1192 1 -2, up to the Fascist dictatorship, 500
labour halls and co-operative stores were burned, and goo socialist municipalities were
dissolved.

How did Reformism and Centrism, in control of the majority of the working class, meet
this offensive of the bourgeoisie? They preached to the workers to put their trust in
legal and pacific methods and the use of the ballot. In May 1921, Giolitti held a general
election, hoping that the reign of violence would have already broken the workers' forces.
The total Socialist and Communist vote, nevertheless, actually exceeded the 1919 total,
reaching 1,861,000, against 1,840,000 in 1919; 122 Socialists and 16 Communists were
returned, totalling 138, as against only 35 Fascists. The workers were endeavouring to use
the ballot in their defence. The Socialist organ, Avanti, in illusory triumph, proclaimed:
"The Italian proletariat has submerged the Fascist reaction under an avalanche of red
votes." The reality was otherwise. The "avalanche of red votes" made no
difference to a situation of civil war. The violence, in place of being diminished, was
increased.

The next step of the reformist leadership was to spread even more disastrous illusions
as to the real character of the struggle. They endeavoured to enter into a formal treaty
of peace with Fascism. On August 3, 19 2 1, the Fascist-Socialist Treaty was signed,
proclaiming an end to all acts of violence. This was signed by Mussolini and his
colleagues on the one side; on the

THE Growth and vist OF FASCISM 125

other by the Executive of the Socialist Party, of the Socialist Parliamentary Group and
of the General Confederation of Labour. The Communist Party refused to take part in this
criminal comedy. The agreement was not worth the paper it was written on. The Fascist
violence went forward; and Mussolini explained the violation of his pledge by declaring
that he had been "overridden" by his supporters.

The final step of the reformist leadership was to endeavour to enter into a
parliamentary ministerial combination. After the resignation of  Facta in July 1922,
Turati as the Socialist parliamentary leader saw the King. When the attempt to secure
agreed terms for a ministerial coalition was unsuccessful, the Reformist leadership
conceived the idea of calling a general strike at this late stage as a weapon of extra-
parliamentary pressure to bring about the formation of a coalition government. The general
strike was called on August I, wholly without preparation, and was explained by Turati to
be a strike "in defence of the State." Under these conditions the general strike
was inevitably a failure, reaching only a section of the membership of the Confederation
of Labour, and winning no general response, because of the utter lack of serious
preparation or fighting lead. The effect was only to play into the hands of the Fascists,
who intensified their attack.

The conditions were now complete for the final step of the open transmission of power
by the bourgeoisie into the hands of the Fascists. This took place in October. The
transmission was carried through by the combined action of the King, the army chiefs and
the Facta Cabinet. A theatrical "March on Rome" of Fascists was organised for
October 28. This march was in fact organised under six army generals; and the
Commander-in-Chief of the Army addressed an enthusiastic Fascist gathering on the evening
of October 27. The Facta Cabinet went through the form of proclaiming martial law; this
only had the effect that the civil authorities handed over their powers to the military
throughout the country, who promptly allowed the Fascists to occupy the public offices,
railways, postal and telegraphic offices, etc. After this bad been successfully achieved,
the King announced on the morning of October 28 that he refused to sign the decree of
martial law; martial law was accordingly withdrawn; it was in consequence declared
impossible to "defend" Rome against the Fascists. The Facta

12 6 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Cabinet, which had already been in negotiation with the FASCISTS resigned. Mussolini
was invited to form a Ministry, and arrived at Rome on October 30 in a sleeping-car. Such
was the so-called Fascist "revolution," which was in fact carried through from
start to finish by the bourgeois dictatorship from above. The full forms of the Fascist
dictatorship were not immediately decided and carried through, as in Germany eleven years
later, because the methods were still being experimentally discovered. At first, a show of
parliamentary forms and permission of opposition parties and Press was maintained,
alongside wholesale governmentally maintained violence and terrorism in practice. It was
not until 1926 that the completed Fascist dictatorship was finally established, with
complete suppression of all other parties, organisations and Press, the workers' trade
unions being officially incorporated in the Fascist syndicates, and the principal
Reformist  trade union leaders, including D'Aragona, passing over to Fascism. The
Italian example provides the classic demonstration of the transition to Fascism. The lines
of development, the roles of the different elements, the successive stages of this tragedy
of the working class stand out clear and sharp for all to learn. What are the principal
conclusions that stand out? First, the revolutionary wave in Italy was broken, not by the
bourgeoisie, not by Fascism, but by its own inner weakness and lack of revolutionary
leadership, by Reformism. Second, Fascism only came to the front after the proletarian
advance was already broken from within and disillusionment had been spread. Fascism
appeared on the scene after the battle in order to play the hero (under police and
military protection) in harassing and slaughtering an army already in retreat. Third, the
transition to open Fascist dictatorship was no sudden abrupt break and reversal of
bourgeois policy, but a continuation of bourgeois policy into new forms. Fascism was
prepared and fostered within the conditions of bourgeois democracy (alongside a show of
"liberalism" and concessions, so long as the bourgeois forces were unprepared),
to be placed in power when the conditions were ripe. All these lessons were demonstrated
in the classic example of Italian Fascism. Nevertheless, they were not yet learnt by the
international working class. They were to be demonstrated anew on a yet wider scale in the
next decade in Germany.

THE victory of Fascism in Germany opened a new page in the whole development of
Fascism. Up to that time the view had still been generally expressed, in liberal
democratic and social democratic circles, that Fascism and "dictatorship" in
general was a phenomenon of backward countries, of industrially less developed countries
without a strong industrial proletariat, of Southern and Eastern Europe. But Germany was
the country with the most highly-advanced and concentrated industrial development in
Europe, and with the most highly-organised and politically conscious industrial
proletariat in the whole capitalist world. Yet the most brutal and barbarous Fascist
dictatorship yet known, leaving the Italian in the shade, triumphed in Germany in 1933.
How was this possible? How did it arise? This question is of vital concern to the
countries of Western Europe and America, with their closely parallel conditions. The
answer is to be found, not simply in the events of 31933,  but in the whole fifteen
years' development of the German Revolution. The establishment of the Fascist dictatorship
was only the culminating step of a long process, which began already in 19 18 when Ebert
and Hindenburg drew up the terms of their treaty of alliance against the proletarian
revolution. Superficial critics, with their eyes only on the events of 1933, speak often
of the "sudden collapse," of the inglorious "defeat without a battle"
of the powerful and highly-organised German working class. They speak of the
"ease" with which Fascism won its victory, and of the "incapacity" of
the German working class to fight. This picture is a false one, as the whole past history
of the German Revolution has already proved, and as its future will still more abundantly
prove. The battle of the German working class against the advancing counter-revolution
lasted for fifteen

127

1128 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

years before the Fascist dictatorship could be established; in that battle tens of
thousands of German workers gave their lives under the bullets of the enemy; and if in the
end the workingclass forces had to retreat and could not prevent the establishment of the
Fascist dictatorship, this was not due to any superior fighting strength of Fascism, but
was solely because the action of the workers was paralysed and prevented by their own
majority leadership, and by their own mistaken discipline and loyalty under that
leadership. But the speed with which the vanguard of the working class has adapted itself
to the new conditions, and taken up the struggle with renewed force under the leadership
of the Communist Party in the face of all the terrorism and suppression, is the surest
guarantee that the Hitler dictatorship will be only an episode in the long-drawn battle of
the German working class and in its advance to the final victory of the proletarian
revolution.

I. The Strangling of the 1918 Revolution.

The seeds of Hitler's victory were sown in 1918. TheGerman workers and soldiers had
overthrown the old State and won complete power. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils were
supreme throughout the country. The bourgeoisie and old militarist class were unable to
offer any resistance. All the conditions were present for building an impregnable Soviet
Republic-save that no revolutionary party existed to lead the workers (the Communist Party
of Germany was only formed in December 1918). The completeness of the proletarian power at
the beginning of the revolution, before Social Democracy had squandered and destroyed it,
is attested by the principal social  democratic witnesses themselves: The military
collapse brought the whole power of the State into the hands of the proletariat at one
stroke. (H. Strobel, The German Revolution, p. I.) In November, 1918, the Revolution was
the work of the proletariat alone. The proletariat won so all-powerful a position that the
bourgeois elements at first did not dare to attempt any resistance. (Kautsky, Introduction
to the Third Edition of The Proletarian Revolution, 1931.) How was this absolute power of
the proletariat turned in fifteen years into its exact opposite--into the absolute power
of the bourgeoisie and militarist class, and the absolute subjection

THE STRANGLING OF THE 1918 REVOLUTION 129

of the working class? The answer to this question, in which is contained the tragedy of
the German Revolution of 1918, is comprised in two words-Social Democracy. The German
Social Democratic Party was built upon a long and glorious revolutionary past. Its early
years had been watched over by Marx and Engels, and led by Bebel and the elder Liebknecht.
It had refused to vote the war credits in the war of 1870, and had fought and defeated
during the 'eighties Bismarck's twelve-year attempt at its suppression. It had stood for
the programme of revolutionary Marxism, and on this programme had built up the mass
organisations of the working class. But in the imperialist era, opportunism and corruption
had made increasing inroads in the leadership especially in the reformist trade-union
leadership. In their closing years Marx and Engels had already given warning of the danger
and called for a split. Their warnings were ignored; and their messages and programme-
criticisms were held back from the membership. The party and trade union apparatus grew in
practice more and more closely bound up with the capitalist State. 1914 completed the
process; the Social Democratic Party leadership openly united with the Kaiser, the
militarists and the bourgeoisie in support of the imperialist war, against the working
class. The scattered opposition elements, under heavily difficult conditions of combined
warcensorship and party-censorship, gathered their ranks for the fight, in the
revolutionary illegal Spartacus League, founded in 1 916, and in the Independent Socialist
Party, founded in 1917. Through these forces the 19 18 revolution was organised. The
Social Democratic Party had no part in the victory of the 1918 revolution, but was on the
contrary opposed to it from the first. As Scheidemann declared in his libel lawsuit in
Berlin in 1922: "The imputation that Social Democracy wanted or prepared the November
revolution is a ridiculous, stupid lie of our opponents." When the revolution broke
out, the Social Democratic leaders were Ministers in the Coalition Government of Prince
Max; in the critical days their Executive issued call after call to the population against
revolution;  when they found themselves compelled to press for the abdication of the
Kaiser, they did so, according to Scheidemann (Vorwarts, December 6, 1922), in the hope to
save the monarchy; the trade union leaders were negotiating a Treaty of Alliance with

130 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the employers, which was actually signed on November 15, 1918. Nevertheless, the main
body of the workers, soldiers and sailors, who were in fact carrying through the
revolution against the Social Democratic leadership, were at the same time organised in
the Social Democratic Party and under its leadership. This was the fatal contradiction of
the November revolution, which led to its downfall. As soon as the revolution had
triumphed on November 9, the Social Democratic leaders hastened to the revolutionary
leaders, to Liebknecht and the Independents, to beg to take part in the leadership of the
victorious revolution and form a joint government. It was at this point, already on the
morning of November 9, that Centrism, in the shape of the Independent or Left Social
Democratic leaders, took the disastrous step which sealed the fate of the revolution.
Liebknecht correctly rejected such a coalition with the open agents of the bourgeoisie,
which could only serve to restore their prestige and enable them to strangle the
revolution. Had the Independents followed the lead of Liebknecht, and stood firm in a
revolutionary bloc, excluding the social imperialists, at the head of the triumphant
revolution (the Spartacists and Independents controlled the majority of the Berlin
Workers' and Soldiers' Council), it is doubtful whether the discredited Social Democratic
leadership, hopelessly identified with the overthrown old regime, could have prevented the
victory of the revolution. But the Independents in the name of "unity" chose the
alternative course. They allied themselves with the Social Democratic enemies of the
revolution in an equal coalition government. In this way, where all other channels had
failed, bourgeois influence was re-established at the heart of the new order. (Within less
than two months the Independents found themselves compelled to withdraw from the coalition
government; but the work had been done; the bourgeois- militarist regime had been
re-established under the protecting shell of Social Democracy.) A Council of People's
Commissars, responsible to the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, was appointed, consisting
of three majority Social Democrats, and three Independents. The forms which had thus to be
adopted revealed how completely the pressure and demand of the masses in the moment



THE STRANGLING OF THE 1918 REVOLUTION 131

of revolution was towards the Soviet Republic. But the leaders of the new formally
soviet order were its sworn enemies whose only thought was to overthrow it. If the
November revolution were to maintain itself, it is obvious that its first task was to
destroy the bases of power of the old regime, which was momentarily defeated, but still
fully in being: to replace at all strategic points the old reactionary bureaucracy,
military caste and magistracy; to break up the landed estates; to take over the banks and
large enterprises; to build up the workers' armed guards for the defence of the
revolution. Had this been done, when there was full power to do it, Fascism could never
have raised its head in Germany. But the Social Democratic Government did the opposite. At
every point it confirmed and protected the old regime; maintained the bureaucracy and all
reactionary institutions; appointed bourgeois Ministers for War, the Navy, Foreign
Affairs, Finance and the Interior; ordered the disarming of the workers; and armed and
equipped special counter-revolutionary corps under the most reactionary monarchist
officers. Through these White Guard corps, authorised, financed and equipped by the Social
Democratic Government, the workers' revolution was drowned in blood; Liebknecht and Rosa
Luxemburg were murdered, the officers who murdered them going scot free and openly
glorying in their crime under the Social Democratic Government; the resistance of the
workers was steadily suppressed with systematic terror through the end of 1918 and through
1919. Thus the 1918 revolution was defeated by Social Democracy. Only so was the basis for
subsequent Fascism laid. What led the Social Democratic leadership to act in this fashion,
which could in the end only mean the destruction also of their own positions? By 1920 the
Social Democratic Ministers were already fleeing from Berlin in the night before the same
officers they had themselves armed and equipped, and only the action of the workers saved
them; by 1933, when the resistance of the workers had been still further broken and the
power of the counter-revolution built up, their Organisation was formally dissolved, and
they passed into exile. Blindness, folly, stupidity is the common answer of those who
still seek to apologise for them, in the face of the terrible sequel of their acts.

132 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

But in fact the Social Democratic leaders acted with full consciousness of what they
were doing, and could not act otherwise on the basis of their whole line. For their one
thought in 1918-19, as their  subsequent memoirs have abundantly shown, was to
"save Germany from Bolshevism," that is, in fact, to save the capitalist
regime-always in the name of "democracy." But they could only accomplish this in
alliance with the most reactionary and militarist classes as the sole force to crush the
working class. Therefore they entered into alliance with the bourgeoisie, with the
militarists, with the old General Staff, with the White Guards-always in the name of
"democracy." In a revolutionary period the class struggle knows no halfmeasures:
either the victory of the working class revolution, or the victory of complete reaction;
either Kornilov or Bolshevism; either Hindenburg or Communism. The class-realities tore
through the "democratic" pretences. Only two courses were open in post-war
Germany: either the victory of the workingclass revolution or the complete victory of
reaction. In their hostility to the former the Social Democratic leadership chose the
latter. They entered into formal alliance with the representatives of the old regime. The
direct alliance of Hindenburg and President Ebert, the leader of Social Democracy, was
formally sealed in an exchange of letters. Hindenburg wrote to President Ebert in December
1918 (the letter was quoted by the son of Ebert in February 1933, in a published appeal to
Hindenburg, begging for the toleration of Social Democracy under Fascism in view of its
past services): I address you because I have been told that you, too, as a true German,
love the Fatherland above everything, suppressing personal opinions and desires just as I
had to do because of the plight of the Fatherland. In this spirit I have concluded an
alliance with you to save our people from a threatening collapse. General Groener, Chief
of the German General Staff at the time of the November Revolution, gave the same evidence
in the course of a libel case at Munich in November 1925, that an "alliance" was
concluded between the old monarchist General Staff and Social Democracy to defeat
Bolshevism. He stated: On November 10, 1918, I had a telephone conversation with Ebert,
and we concluded an alliance to fight Bolshevism and Sovietism and restore law and order.
. . .

THE STRANGLING OF THE 1918 REVOLUTION 133

Every day between II p.m. and I a.m. the staff of the High Command talked to Ebert on a
special secret telephone. From November 10 our immediate object was to wrest power in
Berlin out of the hands of the Councils of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Thus the seeds
of Fascism and of the victory of the counterrevolution were planted by Social Democracy.
From the beginning of the revolution continuously, while the workers were most stringently
disarmed and subjected to heavy penalties if any were found in possession of arms, the
illegal, armed counter-revolutionary corps and formations, which were the first forms of
Fascism, were  protected and tolerated by Social Democracy and by the Entente.
"Disarmament" was never applied to these; the Fascist murder-gangs worked their
will with impunity throughout the so-called "democratic republic," shown
conspicuously in their murders of Erzberger and thenau. The tolerance of the Entente for
these formations, in deference to the insistence of German statesmen that they were
essential for the defeat of the revolution, is illustrated in the diary of the British
Ambassador in Berlin, Lord D'Abernon, who as late as the autumn of 1920, two years after
the armistice, is still recording "long conversations" without result on the
issue. Berlin, October 22, 192o. A long conversation with Dr. Simons at the Foreign
Office. Regarding Disarmament, Dr. Simons said that the demands of the Entente for the
dismemberment of various Einwohnerwehr and Orgesch (Fascist) organisations was equivalent
to delivering up the orderly section of the population to their greatest foes. Without
organisation the bourgeois element cannot resist the Reds, who are a real danger. In fact,
effective disarmament was never carried out. Through all the varying forms and phases of
the Einwohnerwehr, the Orgesch, the Ehrhardt Brigade and its successors, the Organisation
Consul, the Black Reichswehr, the so-called Labour Corps, and finally the Stahlhelm and
Storm Troops, the counterrevolutionary formations were maintained under the aegis of
Social Democracy and the "democratic republic" right up to the final triumph of
Fascism. But the workers' attempt at self-defence, the Red Front, was ruthlessly
suppressed by Social Democracy (by Severing as Minister of the Interior in1929). On this
basis was built up the Weimar Republic, which lasted

134 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

from 1918 to 1932 on the basis of the coalition of the bourgeoisie and Social
Democracy. Throughout these years Social Democracy was in governmental office: during the
greater number of them in the Federal Government (f rom 19 18 to 19 2 5 under the
presidency of Ebert, and from 1928 to 1930 in the Muller Cabinet); during all of them in
Prussia, through the BraunSevering Cabinets, governing the majority of the German
population; and the principal Police President posts were held by Social Democrats. Thus
Fascism grew to power under the protection of Social Democracy. The Weimar Republic was on
paper "the freest democracy in the world." In reality, it covered the
maintenance and protection of the reactionary institutions of the old regime, combined
with the violent suppression of the workers and constant recourse to martial law and
emergency dictatorship against the workers (the bloody suppressions of 1918-19; the terror
in the Ruhr after the Kapp Putsch in 1920, when the workers who had defended the republic
were sentenced by military tribunals composed of officers who had taken part in the
revolt; the Horsing terror in Saxony in 192 1; the military overthrow by the Reich of
 the elected Zeigner Government in Saxony in 1923; the von Seeckt dictatorship and
martial law throughout Germany; the shooting down of the workers' May Day demonstrations
under Severing in 1929; the emergency dictatorship from 1930 to 1933). Of this
"democratic republic" the leading American bourgeois journalist, Mowrer, with no
revolutionary sympathies, could only write: A virgin Republic that appeals to old-time
monarchists and generals to defend it against Communists! Inevitably it falls into the
enemy's hands. . . . What can be said for a republic that allows its laws to be
interpreted by monarchist judges, its government to be administered by old-time
functionaries brought up in fidelity to the old regime; that watches passively while
reactionary school teachers and professors teach its children to despise the present
freedom in favour of a glorified feudal past, that permits and encourages the revival of
the militarism which was chiefly responsible for the country's previous humiliation? What
can be said for democrats who subsidise ex-princes who attack the regime; who make the
exiled ex-Emperor the richest man in deference to supposed property rights. . . . This
remarkable

THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM 135

Republic paid generous pensions to thousands of ex-officers and civil servants who made
no bones of their desire to overthrow it." (E. A. Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock
Back, pp. 17-19.) He further notes that in 1914 30 per cent. of the officers' corps were
of aristocratic lineage; in 1932 21 per cent. were of aristocratic lineage-an indication
how little the real regime was changed under the so-called "democratic
republic." These were the conditions within which Fascism grew to power in Germany in
the midst of bourgeois democracy. Fascism was able to utilise the growing discontent, the
economic distress and the widespread anger against the slave treaty of Versailles and its
tribute. But it was only able to utilise these, and to build a mass following on this
basis, because Social Democracy, the majority leadership of the working class, had
surrendered any leadership on these issues, and had on the contrary identified itself with
capitalism, with Versailles and the tribute, and with the whole regime of oppression of
the masses. And Fascism was only able to build up its strength on these issues, and to
build up its armed formations, because it was protected and assisted at every point from
above, by the State machine, by the police and military, by the judicature and by the big
capitalists, right up to its final placing in power.

2. The Growth of National Socialism.

Fascism grew up in Germany, even more than in Italy, under the  guidance and
fostering care of the old regime, and, in particular, of the military authorities. The old
General Staff remained the real centre of the State behind the outer democratic forms. The
early counter- revolutionary formations, which were the precursors of Fascism, were mainly
composed of officers and ex-officers. Feder, the theoretical founder of National
Socialism, was a Reichswehr instructor. Hitler was put through an intensive political
course by the Army authorities before being launched as a mass agitator. As he has since
recounted in his autobiography, he first came in contact with the National Socialist Party
(then in its first form as the "German Labour Party" in 1919) under orders from
Army headquarters. The semi-professional military Organisation of the Storm Troops was
organised on lines closely parallel to the Reichswehr. But Fascism, to conquer, requires
to develop a mass move

136 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

ment. The early attempts of the counter-revolution, signalised in the Kapp putsch,
based solely on the officers, junkers and bureaucracy, could only end in failure. The
Ludendorff-Hitler putsch of 1923, although preceded by longer agitation, also ended in
immediate ignominious collapse. The leniency with which these armed revolts against the
State were treated shows the semi-official protection under which the counterrevolution
was being built up. The Kapp rebels went unpunished, while workers who had resisted them
were subjected to heavy sentences. Ludendorff went unpunished; Hitler, an alien who had
taken up arms against the State, was given a few months' detention and then allowed to
continue his agitation. But the failure of these putsches showed that it was necessary to
build deeper roots of a mass party, alongside military terrorist organisation. On this
task Fascism concentrated its attention in the succeeding years. The mass agitation of
German National Socialism was built up on the basis of the Twenty-Five Points Programme
originally adopted in 19 2 0 (see Chapter IX), and was especially developed under Hitler,
and later under Goebbels and Gregor Strasser, to direct its appeal, not only to the
peasantry and urban petitbourgeoisie, but to the working masses in the industrial
districts. Whereas Italian Fascism early dropped any pretence of connection with
"socialism," German Fascism could only reach a mass basis by professing to stand
for "socialism." National Socialist propaganda distinguished itself by its wild
and frenzied character of combined anti-Semitism, anticapitalism, and chauvinist
denunciation of Versailles and of the subjection of Germany. Its contradictions,
unscrupulousness and demagogy were far more blatant than in the Italian example. As Hitler
declared in Mein Kampf (in a sentence subsequently deleted since the twelfth edition in
1932): "The German has not the slightest notion how a people must be misled, if the
adherence of the masses is to be sought." Hitler took as his model the British
war-time propaganda, which he admired as the finest  example of the art of demagogic
lying. Fascism can, however, as the Italian example had already shown, only reach a mass
basis after Social Democracy has fully exposed itself and created widespread mass
disillusionment in the midst of growing economic crisis and gathering revolutionary
issues. This is the general background for the growth

THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM137

of Fascism. A first wave of advance to such a basis was reached in the end of 1923 and
the beginning of 1924, after the inflationruin of the petit-bourgeoisie and the failure of
the proletariat in the revolutionary situation of 1923; in the elections of May 1924
National Socialism reached a vote of 1.9 millions (against 6 millions for Social Democracy
and 3.6 millions for Communism). But the subsequent stabilisation period, and the
widespread promises of Social Democracy of a new era of "organised capitalism"
and "economic democracy," led to new hopes in Social Democracy and the dream of
the peaceful, reformist "democratic" path to Socialism. By December 1924, the
Nazi vote fell to 900,000. Four years later, in the 1928 elections, it had fallen to
800,000 (against 9.1 millions for Social Democracy and 3.2 millions for Communism). Only
when the world economic crisis and the Bruning hunger-regime had exposed the final
bankruptcy of all the promises of Social Democracy, only then Fascism leapt forward in the
headlong advance which was revealed at the elections of September 1930, in a vote of 6.4
millions (against 8:5 millions for Social Democracy and 4.5 millions for Communism). This
was carried forward in the Presidential elections of April 1932, to 13.4 millions, and in
the elections of July 1932 (the highest point), to 13.7 millions.

What led to this sudden expansion of Fascism in Germany in 1930 to 1932? The world
economic crisis, which undermined the basis of stabilisation and of the Weimar Republic,
undermined equally the position of Social Democracy which was closely linked up with
these. Capitalism in Germany required to advance to new methods in face of the crisis. It
required to wipe out the remainder of the social gains of the revolution, in respect of
social legislation, hours and wages, which bad constituted the main basis of influence of
Social Democracy in the working class and its stock-in-trade to point to as the fruits of
its policy. In place of the concessions of the early years of the revolution, capitalism
required now to advance to draconian economic measures against the workers. For this
purpose new forms of intensified dictatorship were necessary. Social Democracy was thrust
aside from the Federal Government, and the Bruning dictatorship was established in the
summer of 1930, ruling without parliament by emergency decree-  but with the support
of Social Democracy. On this basis the famous Hunger

138 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Decrees were carried through. Between 1929 and 1932, according to official figures, the
total wages and salaries paid by the employers fell from 44.5 billion marks to 25.7
billion marks; unemployment rose to eight millions; unemployment benefit was cut to an
average of slightly over 9 marks. All this dictatorship and offensive was carried through
with the support of Social Democracy. These were the conditions that made possible the
rapid growth of Fascism. Had Social Democracy been prepared to join forces with Communism
in resisting the Bruning dictatorship and the hunger offensive, there is no question that
the heavy capitalist attack need not have weakened the working-class front and played into
the hands of Fascism, but would have on the contrary intensified the class struggle and
strengthened the working class front and the widest mass mobilisation on this basis ,
leaving no room for Fascism to win a bold. But Social Democracy, rather than join forces
with Communism, preferred to support the Bruning dictatorship, to support the Hunger
Decrees, and to help to carry through the attack on the workers, in the name of the policy
of the "lesser evil." This was the crucial weakness in the proletarian camp in
the decisive years of the preparation of Fascism. This support of the Bruning dictatorship
by the majority working-class organisation, controlling the trade unions, disorganised and
shattered the proletarian ranks. It was only through this disorganisation of the
proletarian ranks that the initiative in the critical years 1930-32, and the main gains
from the universal distress, which should have strengthened the working-class front,
passed instead to Fascism. The leaders of German capitalism were well aware (as the
revealing Fuhrerbriefe" or confidential bulletins of the Federation of German
Industry during the period, quoted in the next chapter, make abundantly clear) that the
policy they were compelled to pursue in the economic crisis, with the attacks on all
sections of the workers, including those who had gained by the previous social
legislation, inevitably meant the weakening of the basis of Social Democracy, their main
support in the working class, and the strengthening of Communism. The weakened and
discredited Social Democracy could no longer hold back the growing Communist advance. The
Weimar

 THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM 139

Coalition basis was bankrupt. The German capitalists clearly recognised that it was
necessary to advance to a new political system, and to build up, alongside Social
Democracy, a parallel new system of mass organisation, to defeat the Communist advance,
against which Social Democracy was no longer adequate, and to disrupt and smash the
working class. In consequence, it was from this period, from the time of the Bruning
dictatorship, that the overwhelming support of the main body of German capitalism and
landlordism began to be placed at the disposal of the hitherto only partially supported
National Socialism, the instrument found ready to their hand. Unlimited funds, not only
from German bourgeois, but also from foreign bourgeois sources, were poured into the
National Socialist coffers. An overwhelming, all- sided, lavish agitation without parallel
in political history was conducted during these years; while the terrorist bands received
abundant police and judicial protection to break up working-class agitation, the hand of
the government dictatorship was heavy on all militant working-class organisation and
agitation. The gigantic, artificial expansion of National Socialism during this period (it
bad begun to sink again as rapidly already by the autumn of 1932 was a highly organised
product of the entire mechanism of the capitalist dictatorship. All the politically
backward discontented elements of the population, petit-bourgeois, declassed elements and
backward workers, were swept into the National Socialist net. The class-conscious workers
who became disillusioned with Social Democracy passed to Communism. The politically
backward elements passed to Fascism. This process is shown by the successive voting
figures. Between 1930 and 1932 Social Democracy lost 1,338,000 votes, while Communism
gained 1,384,000 votes. Thus the Communist gains almost exactly approximated to, slightly
exceeding, the Social Democratic losses. Thanks to the existence of a strong Communist
Party, the losses from Social Democracy did not pass-as in England, in the National
Government elections of 193 1-to abstention or the class enemy, but to the militant
working-class front. The gigantic Nazi gains were essentially derived from the previous
voters for the old bourgeois parties, who lost many millions of votes, and from those who
had not previously voted at all.

140 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

3. The Crucial Question of the United Front. In spite of all the highly subsidised, and
violently supported, Nazi agitation, the combined working-class forces, if they had been
united, were immeasurably superior to the Fascist forces. Even in the merely numerical
test of the electoral votes, they were throughout superior,  with one exception. If
we add together the Social Democratic and Communist votes as an indication of the
potential combined working- class vote (which would have at once become immensely higher
if there had been the enormous stimulus of a united fight against the capitalist
dictatorship), this total exceeded the Nazi total on every occasion, save July 1932. On
that occasion it totalled 13,229,000 against 13,732,000 for the Nazis. But already within
four months, by November 1932, it totalled 13,241,000 against 11,729,000 for the Nazis.
This, however, is merely in respect of the electoral counting of heads. In every real
social and political test, in Organisation, in homogeneity, in their social role, in
political consciousness and in fighting power, the working-class forces, if they had been
united, were immeasurably superior to the Nazi electoral miscellany. The decisive question
was thus the question of the united working- class fight. To this the Communist Party
devoted all its efforts. As the issue grew more and more urgent, the Communist Party
issued appeal after appeal for the united workingclass front against Fascism and the
capitalist attack, both to the mass of the workers and specifically to the Social
Democratic Party and to the General Trade Union Federation. The first nation-wide appeal
for the united front was launched in April 1932, by the Communist Party and the Red Trade
Union Opposition, who called for a combined action of all labour organisations against the
then impending general wage offensive. This appeal won a measure of response among the
lower trade union organs and social democratic membership, but was rejected by the Social
Democratic and trade union leadership, who maintained a ban on the united front. The
second appeal for the united front was made on July 20, 1932, after the von Papen
dictatorship had expelled the Social Democratic Government of Prussia. The Communist Party
directly addressed itself to the Executives of the Social Democratic Party and of the
General Trade Union Federation, proposing the joint Organisation of a general strike for
the repeal of

THE CRUCIAL QUESTION OF THE UNITED FRONT 141

the emergency decrees and the disbanding of the Storm Troops. The Social Democratic
leadership rejected this appeal for a united front, branding any call for a general strike
as a provocation, and declaring that the only method to oppose Fascism was the ballot. The
third appeal for a united front was made on January 30, 1933, after Hitler had been
installed as Chancellor. This appeal won such wide response that, though the Social
Democratic leadership made no official answer, it was compelled to explain its refusal in
its Press and put forward tentatively alternative suggestions of a "non-aggression
pact" (i.e., abstention from verbal criticism), but specifically excluding any action
against Hitler on the grounds that he was legally in power  and should not be
opposed. The fourth appeal for a united front was made on March 1, 1933, after the burning
of the Reichstag and the unloosing of the full Nazi terror. This appeal was left
unanswered by the Social Democratic and trade union leadership, who were endeavouring to
come to an understanding for the toleration of Social Democracy under Fascism. Alongside
these direct appeals for the united front, the Communist Party endeavoured to the utmost
of its power to build the united front from below with the Social Democratic, trade union
and unorganised workers throughout Germany. This won a wide measure of response, as shown
in increasing mass demonstrations and partial strikes and actions; but it was heavily
handicapped from reaching effective strength by the official ban of the Social Democratic
and trade union leadership, who excluded all active members and organisations that took
part in the united front. In the face of this record, it is impossible for any impartial
judge to reach any other verdict than that the united workingclass front, which could
alone have defeated Hitler, was rendered impossible solely by the official ban of the
Social Democratic and trade union leadership. This was the decisive condition which made
possible the victory of Fascism in Germany. Social Democracy rejected the united
working-class front because it was pursuing an alternative line, which it declared to be
the correct line for defeating Fascism-the line of unity with the bourgeoisie and support
of the bourgeois State, even under conditions of dictatorship. This was the so-called line
of the

142 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"lesser evil." What was this conception of the "lesser evil"? The
existing bourgeois dictatorship, even after democratic forms had been flung aside, even
under Hindenburg, Bruning, von Papen or von Schleicher, was declared to be a "lesser
evil" than the victory of Fascism. Therefore it should be supported, and every blow
against the workers accepted passively without struggle (the same line was subsequently
pursued by Austrian Social Democracy in the support of Dollfuss). But these forms of
dictatorship were only preparing the ground for complete Fascism, destroying the
resistance of the workers step by step, and, as soon as their work was complete, handing
over the State to Hitler. Thus the line of the "lesser evil" meant the passive
acceptance of every stage of development to complete Fascism. And even when Hitler came to
power, his rule, on the grounds that he was "legally" in power, was proclaimed a
"lesser veil" to an "illegal" Nazi terror, and therefore not to be
opposed. Thus the line ran continuously without a break to the complete Nazi terror and
suppression of all working-class organisations. In this way the line of Social Democracy
ensured the victory of Fascism in Germany without a struggle. The first step in this
policy was the "toleration" of the Bruning  dictatorship since 1930. The
second decisive step was the support of Hindenburg as President in 1932. Social Democracy
urged that the victory of the reactionary Hindenburg was necessary to defeat Hitler (as
against the Communist warning to the workers that "a vote for Hindenburg is a vote
for Hitler"). As soon as Hindenburg was installed as President by the support of
Social Democracy, before a year was out, he placed Hitler in power. The third decisive
step was the passive acceptance in July 1932, of the forcible ejection of the
constitutional Social Democratic Government of Prussia by von Papen. All over Germany
Socialists who read the news of the ignominious dismissal of Braun and Severing waited for
the inevitable answerthe general strike-and waited in vain. (Mowrer, Germany Puts the
Clock Back, P. 7.) The Social Democratic Ministers, instead, appealed to the Supreme Court
at Leipzig, which indulged in some very delicate legal discussions as to the legal status
of the dismissed Ministers in relation to the Commissar imposed in their place-until the

THE CAUSES OF THE VICTORY OF FASCISM 143

completion of the Fascist dictatorship rendered further discussion unnecessary. This
was in fact the culminating point already in July 1932. From this point it was clear to
the bourgeoisie that the complete Fascist dictatorship could be put through without
resistance from Social Democracy, which would only exert its powers to hold in the
workers. 4. The Causes of the Victory of Fascism. Although the effective building of the
united working-class front was thus prevented by the official ban and active opposition of
Social Democracy, there was a growing measure of partial united front development from
below through the initiative and leadership of Communism. During 1932 a rising wave of
resistance developed among the workers. This showed itself in the rising strike movement
in 1932, led by the Communists, and the overwhelming mass demonstrations against von
Papen, culminating in the Berlin transport strike of November 1(32. The Berlin transport
strike was led by the Red Trade Union Opposition, after an overwhelming majority vote of
the men for a strike (14,000 Out Of 18,ooo voting and 21,ooo eligible to vote) had been
turned down by the trade union officials; it was completely effective in stopping all
traffic, and was only broken by wholesale Government violence, arrests and shootings. At
the same time the November elections reflected the rising wave: the Nazi vote fell by over
two millions, the Social Democratic vote fell by 700,000, while the Communist vote rose by
700,000 to nearly six millions. This situation, as revealed both in the Berlin transport
strike and in  the elections, opened up the prospect of the effective leadership of
the working class passing rapidly in the near future to Communism, while the Fascist tide
was visibly ebbing. Urgent measures had to be taken by the bourgeoisie. Von Papen had to
resign on November 17. Long negotiations followed between Hindenburg and Hitler. It was
clear, however, that, in view of the rising working-class resistance, it was necessary
first to temporise and manoeuvre for a short space. The "social General" von
Schleicher was accordingly installed as Chancellor for a couple of months, during which he
relaxed some of the emergency decrees, especially with regard to the freedom of the Press
and assembly, proclaimed his main

144 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

concern with the "social question," negotiated for an alliance with Leipart
and the trade union chiefs, who accordingly praised him highly in their Press, and in
general sought to lull the workers' resistance. (At the same time, strong police
protection was given to the Nazis, as in their provocative demonstration in the Billow
Square on January 25, 1933.) Then, when the ground seemed adequately prepared, Hitler was
installed as Chancellor on January 30. The ebbing of the Fascist tide in the elections of
November 1932, had been universally hailed by Social Democracy as the end of the Fascist
danger. The Social Democratic Press spoke of "the final annihilation of Hitler."
The leading Second International organ, the Vienna Arbeiterzeitung wrote: "One thing
is now clear: Germany will not be Fascist." The British Labour publicist, Laski,
wrote in the Daily Herald: I think it is a safe prophecy that the Hitlerite movement has
passed its apogee, and that it is unlikely to retain much longer the appearance of
solidity it had a few months ago. Hitler or some of his partisans may enter the von Papen
Cabinet; but in that case they will be rapidly submerged by the forces of the Right. . . .
The day when they were a vital threat is gone . . . . All that remains of his movement is
a threat he dare Dot fulfil . . . . He reveals himself as a myth without permanent (H. J.
Laski, Hitler: Just a Figurehead, in the Daily Herald, November 19, 1932.) Such was the
wisdom of Social Democracy on the very eve of Hitler's dictatorship. At the same time the
Communists were giving the warning with regard to the election defeats of the Nazis:
"However great the defeat of National Socialism may have been, it would be criminally
foolish to talk of the smashing up of the mass-movement of Fascism" (Communist
International December 1, 1(32). Once again the Communist diagnosis proved correct, as in
the case of the election of Hindenburg, and on issue after issue in the whole development
to Fascism, and the Social Democratic diagnosis proved hopelessly incorrect. The electoral
retreat of the Nazis in November, so far from meaning the annihilation of Fascism, meant
the opposite.  just the evidence of waning mass support hastened the decision of the
bourgeoisie to place Fascism in power, before its stock should have hopelessly sunk and
Communism grown to full strength in the

THE CAUSES OF THE VICTORY OF FASCISM 145

working class, in order that on the basis of State power Fascism should be able to
rebuild its strength and smash all opposition.* If the coming to power of Fascism in Italy
was already the opposite of a "revolution," being entirely carried out under the
guidance and protection of the higher authorities, this was still more ignominiously the
case with the coming to power of Fascism in Germany. There was no pretence of a
"march on Rome." There was no question of a parliamentary majority or
combination. There was no question of a conflict with the existing ruling authorities. So
far from Fascism coming to power on the crest of a popular wave, as the myth is attempted
to be created after the event, Fascism was heavily ebbing in mass support, and its leaders
were actually discussing (according to the expelled Otto Strasser in his Black Front) the
danger of the rapid disintegration of their movement. It was just because of this menace
of decomposition of the last reserves of defence for bourgeois rule that the bourgeois
dictatorship decided to take the plunge and place Fascism in power as the final measure.
Fascism was placed in power by the grace of a social-democratically-elected President. The
significance of placing Hitler in power was above all the amalgamation of the already
existing dictatorial State machine, prepared by Mining and von Papen, and the extra-legal
Fascist fighting forces to create a single unparalleled instrument of * Interesting
confirmation of this analysis of the situation preceding the advent of Hitler to power is
afforded by the American observer, C. B. Hoover, in his book Germany Enters the Third
Reich (1933). Arriving in Germany in the latter part of 1932, he found the situation
following the November elections as follows: "During this period the writer discussed
the political situation with industrialists, editors, bankers, political leaders,
university professors, labour leaders, economists, and others. Almost without exception
they insisted that Hitler had missed his hour. . . . in spite of the fact that the writer
had come to Germany in September 1932, with the fixed belief that Hitler's coming to power
was a virtual certainty, the fact that nowhere could there be found anyone outside the
National Socialist movement who would even entertain the possibility finally shook this
conviction" (p. 64).  He admits that alone the Communists judged the situation
more accurately: "With the possible exception of the Communists, the opposition
parties and classes had been living in a fool's paradise. . . . 'Responsible opinion' was
unanimous that the process of disintegration in the National Socialist Party was
progressing at an accelerated pace" (p. 88). He notes further that just this
disintegration of the Nazi movement convinced the big bourgeoisie of the necessity to take
immediate steps to counteract this: "After the losses of the National Socialists in
the Reichstag elections of November, German 'Big Business' decided that the immediate
danger was that tile National Socialist Party might disintegrate too rapidly" (P.
83).

146 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

terror for war on the working class. Whereas in Italy the great part of the work of
terror and material destruction was carried out already before the conquest of power, in
Germany this was not possible to anything approaching a similar degree, owing to the
superior strength of the working class; and the overwhelming terror and destruction, the
unleashing of all the furies of lawlessness, only took place after the Nazis were safely
ensconced in State power. As the American bourgeois observer, Calvin Hoover, writes: It
must be emphasised that there was no revolution at all in the sense of seizure of the
State power against resistance from the armed forces of the State or from any other force.
Von Papen had completed taking over the State without resistance in July 1932, and bad
passed the State power on to von Schleicher, who in turn had handed it over to Hitler.
Consequently, the assaults which took place were against unarmed and unresisting
individuals. . . . The extraordinary skill of Hitler in paralysing the will to resist of
his opponents had, strictly speaking, made all these acts of violence unnecessary except
as a means of satisfying the blood-lust of the S.S. an(Calvin B. Hoover, Germany Enters
the Thir111-2.) The "extraordinary skill" was not necessary; the
"paralysing the will to resist" was accomplished, not by Fascism, but by Social
Democracy. The question is often asked why the advent to power of Hitler and the
unleashing of the Nazi terror did not immediately release a universal movement of
resistance of the powerful German working class. The question reveals a failure to
understand the conditions. The control of the majority of the working class, and in
particular of the overwhelming majority (nearly nine-tenths, according to the factory
councils elections) of the employed industrial workers, and of the entire trade union
machine, lay with Social Democracy. The traditions  of the German working-class
movement are, more than in any country, the traditions of a disciplined movement. The
decision as to the action or otherwise of the German working class in the face of Hitler
lay entirely in the hands of the Social Democratic and trade union leadership. But the
policy of Social Democracy was to "tolerate" Hitler, and even (especially in the
case of the trade union leadership)

THE CAUSES OF THE VICTORY OF FASCISM 147

to seek to reach an accommodation with him. Already in 1932 the Social Democratic
leadership were speaking favourably of the prospect of a Hitler Government. Thus Severing
declared in April 1932: "The Social Democratic Party, no less than the Catholic
Party, is strongly inclined to see Herr Hitler's Nazis share the Governmental
responsibility." And the party organ Vorwarts wrote in the same period: "Apart
from constitutional considerations it is a precept of political sagacity to allow the
Nazis to come to power before they have become a majority." Let Hitler come to power;
Hitler's coming to power is inevitable; Hitler's coming to power will be the quickest way
to expose him: this was the fatal line of thought of Social Democracy. Only the Communists
were opposing this line and proclaiming in the same period (Rote Fahne, April 2 6, 193 2
): "We shall do everything to bar Hitler's way to Governmental power." But the
Communists were in the minority. When Hitler came to power on January 30, the Social
Democratic leadership rejected the Communist appeal for a united struggle. They declared
that Hitler had come to power "constitutionally" and "legally" (i.e.,
by the appointment of Hindenburg from above), and therefore should not be opposed. The
only course was to await the elections on March S. Meanwhile Hitler armed the Storm Troops
and incorporated them in the State as "auxiliary Police" with special control of
the "policing" of the elections, suppressed the entire Social Democratic and
Communist Press, forbade all working-class meetings and propaganda, arrested all leading
militants, and let loose the terror, and under these conditions held his
"elections." Even the conservative Times was compelled to declare that such
conditions, already a fortnight before the burning of the Reichstag and before the full
terror and suppression, "render the holding of normal elections impossible"
(London Times, February 15, 1933). On the eve of the poll the Daily Herald wrote (March 4,
1933): "The people of Germany go to the polls under the shackles of a vile terrorism.
. . . The result of the poll will be no index of the thought of the nation." The
figures of the polling, which in some districts exceeded the number of electors, revealed
also the falsification of the poll, in addition to the terror. Yet after the terror
elections the entire Social Democracy seized eagerly on the plea that Hitler had now a
"democratic 

148 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

mandate," and that it would be indefensible to oppose him save as a "loyal
parliamentary opposition." Stampfer, the former editor of Vorwarts, wrote in the
party bulletin after the elections: The victory of the Government parties makes it
possible to govern strictly in accordance with the Constitution. . . . They have only to
act as a legal Government, and it will follow naturally that we shall be a legal
opposition; if they choose to use their majority for measures that remain within the
framework of the Constitution, we shall confine ourselves to the role of fair critics.
Kautsky wrote: The Dictatorship has the mass of the population behind it. (Kautsky, What
Now? Reflections upon March 5th.) The Diplomatic Correspondent of the Daily Herald, W. N.
Ewer, wrote: The triumph of Hitler, everyone is saying, is a heavy defeat for democracy.
Yet it is really nothing of the kind. It is a victory of democracy, or at any rate of
demagogy. He (Hitler) has come to power by the most strictly constitutional means. He is
Chancellor of Germany under the Weimar Constitution, and by virtue of the Weimar
Constitution. Of course there was a certain amount of intimidation at the elections. There
always is. But it was under the circumstances curiously small. . . . The figures indeed
are proof that the election was practically free. (W. N. Ewer, "Why Hitler
Triumphed," Plebs, April 1933.) The Chairman of the Independent Labour Party, Maxton,
wrote: The brutalities do not make my statement false that Hitler first contrived to get a
popular mandate for setting up his regime. (J. Maxton, New Leader, December 29, 1933.)
Thus Social Democracy endeavoured to cover its subserviency and bootlicking to Fascism by
the transparent devise of ignoring the terror preceding the election, and thereafter
arguing that the mock "election" conducted under the terror constituted a
"democratic mandate." The victory of Fascism was, in the Labour and Social
Democratic view, a "victory of democracy*-" There was a "certain amount of
intimidation at the elections," but "curiously small." The complete
suppression of the Communist and Social Democratic Press; the arrest of the Communist
deputies; the raids on Communist and Social Democratic buildings; the armed occupation of
the Corn

 THE CAUSES OF THE VICTORY OF FASCISM 149

munist headquarters; the suppression of all freedom of speech and meeting; the beating
up and imprisonment of thousands of the most active Communist and Social Democratic
workers: all this is a "curiously small" amount of "intimidation at the
elections." "The election was practically free." Stich is the Labour Party
conception of "democracy," which throws a revealing light on their pose as
champions of "democracy" or their claim through it to bar the way to Fascism.
The line of Social Democracy after the elections, in the face of the full operations of
the Fascist dictatorship and terror, continued this degradation and subserviency to the
extreme point, in the endeavour to win favour with Fascism. The speech of the leader,
Wels, at the opening of the Reichstag on March 23, was the signal expression of this line
of endeavouring to win the favour of Fascism. Wels, as leader of the party, publicly
resigned from the Executive of the Second International, in protest at the spreading of
"atrocity stories" by the latter against the Nazis, The trade union leadership
proclaimed their readiness to co-operate with Fascism, acclaiming in their Press the
Fascist "revolution" as a triumphant "continuation" of the 1918
revolution, urging that the common enemy was Communism, and that their
"socialism" also was "a German affair" (Sozial Demokratischer
Pressedienst, March 9, 1933). On this basis the trade union central executive officially
called on the workers to participate in Hitler's May Day. "The union leaders,"
declared the Labour Daily Herald (April 24, 1933), "have sealed their reconciliation
with the new rulers of Germany." Nevertheless this subserviency did not win for the
reformist leadership the hoped for position of a recognised and tolerated adjunct to
Fascism. A large proportion of the workers in the big enterprises refused to obey their
leaders' instructions and held off the Nazi May Day demonstration. As soon as it was thus
clear that the hold of the reformist leadership on the workers was insufficient to serve
the purposes of Fascism, immediately on the next day, on May 2, the Nazis took over the
trade unions, incorporating them into their Labour front, and threw the leaders into
prison, replacing them by Nazi officials. "The Leiparts and the Grassmanns,"
declared Dr. Ley, the leader of the Nazi Labour front, "may profess their devotion to
Hitler; but they are better in prison."

150 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The Social Democratic Party trod the same path of ignominious capitulation, followed by
dissolution. On May 17 the entire Social Democratic Party in the Reichstag voted for the
Fascist Government's resolution, and joined in the unanimous acclamation of Hitler. This
also did not avail them. The entire property of the Social Democratic  Party was
confiscated, and on June 2 2 the organisation was formally declared dissolved. If the
attempt of Social Democracy to become an officially recognised and tolerated adjunct of
Fascism thus failed (in fact, a considerable number of the functionaries, state and
municipal officials, police presidents, trade union organisers, etc., directly joined the
Nazis and continued in their posts, as also the Reichstag leader, Loebe, and the former
Minister of the Interior, Severing, later declared their support of the Nazis), this was
manifestly not for any lack of trying on the part of the leadership, but only because
Fascism had no confidence in their power to control the workers and no use for any form of
independent working-class Organisation, however subservient the leadership. Social
Democracy was thus forced by the bourgeoisie, in spite of all its pleadings, to perform
its task of disruption under the conditions of illegality, under which conditions it could
be of more use to the bourgeoisie in the event of a rising revolutionary wave in the
working class than if it were openly identified with Fascism. The opposition to Fascism
thus rested throughout with the Communist Party alone, which was the sole political force
in Germany to maintain the fight against Fascism unbroken through all the terror. But the
Communist Party was not yet at the moment of the Fascist coup in a strong enough position
to lead the working class in the face of the opposition of the Social Democratic and trade
union machine. The figure of six million Communist electors is a deceptive measure of the
real fighting strength, because the fighting strength of the working class depends on the
employed industrial workers in large- scale industry, and just there Communism was weak.
In 193o at enterprises employing 5,900,000 workers, the reformist trade unions had 135,689
factory committee members, or 89.9 per cent. of all factory committee members. The
proportion of Communist influence was thus inadequate to draw the working class into the
struggle. The Communist call for the general

THE CAUSES OF THE VICTORY OF FASCISM 151

strike against Hitler remained without effective response; the majority of the workers
remained faithful, to their own heavy cost and subsequent disillusionment, to Social
Democratic discipline. In this situation for the Communist Party to have attempted an
insurrection as a minority, in isolation from the mass of the working class, would have
been an indefensible putsch, resulting only in the destruction of the vanguard of the
working class and ensuring Hitler's power for a generation. The Communist Party was
compelled in consequence to pursue the difficult course of postponing the decisive
struggle, to maintain its organisation, to spead an ever-widening network of agitation and
organisation in the midst of conditions of unparalleled terror, and in this way to build
up the illegal revolutionary movement and the leadership of the working class and to
prepare the final  decisive struggle for the overthrow of Hitler and the victory of
the working-class revolution. The speed, tenacity, heroism and self- sacrifice with which
this task is being accomplished--on. a scale unparalleled in workingclass history under
conditions of illegality and terror, as testified even by all bourgeois observers-is the
guarantee of future victory. The decisive causes of the temporary victory of Fascism in
Germany thus stand out sharply and clearly: First, the strangling of the 1918 revolution,
the destruction of the power of the working class in the name of "democracy" and
the restoration of the capitalist dictatorship and the protection of the reactionary
institutions of the old regime under the cover of Weimar "democracy." Second,
the support of the Bruning dictatorship, and of the successive stages of emergency
dictatorship in preparation of Fascism, by Social Democracy and the trade unions. Third,
the rejection of the united working-class front, and active ban on the united
working-class front, by Social Democracy and the trade unions. Fourth, the refusal of
Social Democracy and the trade union leadership to resist Hitler on his accession to power
or on the opening of the Nazi terror. The experience of Germany from 1918 to 1933 is the
classic demonstration before the international working class of how a working-class
revolution can be destroyed and squandered and brought to the deepest abyss of
working-class subjection. It is --------------------------------------- 152. FASCISM AND
SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the classic demonstration before the international working class of where the path of
bourgeois "democracy" leads, step by step to its inexorable conclusion. History
has produced in the two great post-war revolutions the Russian Revolution and the German
Revolution, the gigantic demonstration of the two main paths in our epoch and where they
lead. The Russian October Revolution and the German November Revolution occurred within
twelve months of each other; but they followed divergent paths. The one followed the path
of the proletarian dictatorship, of the Communist International. The other followed the
path of bourgeois "democracy," of the Second International. The theoretical
expression of that divergence was contained in the controversy at the time of Kautsky and
Lenin. To-day, a decade and a half later, we can see where those two paths have led. The
path of the proletarian dictatorship, of Lenin, of the Communist International, has led to
the ever-greater strengthening of the workers and the triumphant building of Socialism.
The path of bourgeois "democracy," of Kautsky, of the Second International, has
led to the victory of Fascism.

HOW FASCISM CAME IN AUSTRIA  HARD on the heels of the victory of Fascism in
Germany came the establishment of the Fascist dictatorship of Dollfuss in Austria during
1933-4. The rising of the Austrian workers in February 1934, against this Fascist
dictatorship, opened a new stage in the struggle of the international working class
against Fascism, at the same time as it finally completed the German experience in
exposing the illusions of "democratic socialism." The lesson of Austria is even
clearer and sharper in many respects than that of Germany. 1. The Significance of the
Austrian Experience. In the first place, Austria revealed a conflict between two rival
forces of Fascism, the Heimwehr and the Nazis, openly reflecting the battle for domination
of rival imperialist and Fascist Powers over the living body of the Austrian people. There
could be no more striking demonstration of the real role of Fascism as the chauvinist
predatory policy of particular groupings of finance-capital, belying all the
"national," "popular" and "pacific" pretences. The battle of
Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy over the body of Fascist Austria provides a foretaste of
the "majestic peace of World Fascism." Both these forces were in fact equally
united against the working class, but sharply in conflict between themselves for the
dominant position. In the initial stage the ClericalFascism of Dollfuss, subordinate to
Italian Fascism, has conquered; but the further development of events may still bring a
change of combinations and the possible ultimate dominance of the Nazis and Pan-German
Fascism. In this situation the fatal policy of the working-class organisations under
Social Democratic leadership was to endeavour to support one Fascist group against the
other, Dollfuss against the Nazis, as the "lesser evil," and thus to smooth the
way at every stage for the advance and victory of Fascism.

154. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Second, the Fascist dictatorship of Dollfuss grew directly out of bourgeois democracy
under Dollfuss, even more clearly than the parallel Hindenburg-Hitler process in Germany.
Dollfuss was acclaimed throughout Western Europe as the "champion of democracy
against Fascism" (i.e., against the German Nazi menace), and on this basis was
supported and tolerated by Social Democracy, at the same time as in fact he was carrying
through the transition to Fascism. Up to the last, on the very eve of the workers' rising,
Social Democracy was offering to accept and support an emergency dictatorship of Dollfuss,
the suspension of the parliamentary regime, and institution of a form of Corporate State,
on condition of being permitted to exist under these conditions-the clearest, most
conscious expression of the line of Social Fascism. The policy of Social Democracy, of the
"lesser evil," here receives its crushing exposure no less heavily than in
Germany. Third, the Austrian working class was the most highly organised in the capitalist
world. In a population of six millions the paying membership of the Social Democratic
Party numbered six hundred thousand, and the voting strength one and a half millions, or
70 per cent. of the  electorate in Vienna and 40 per cent. of the electorate in the
whole country. There was no question of a "split" in Organisation. The Communist
Party, although playing a role of great significance in the fight (it alone gave the call
for the general strike on February 10, which was forced by the workers on the reformist
leadership on the I 11th), and in the actual launching of the fight (Linz, where the
united front of the Communist and Social Democratic workers had been established in
defiance of the reformist leadership, and the fight was opened against the express orders
of the reformist leadership), was nevertheless extremely weak in numbers. The attempt to
explain the advance and victory of Fascism by the "split" in the working class
through the existence of Communism is thus exploded once and for all by the example of
Austria. Social Democracy boasted of its sole complete control of the working class, and
thereby admits its sole responsibility for the outcome. "There was no split in the
Austrian Labour Movement; the Communists were merely an insignificant minority. The fact
that so powerful a party should have been completely smashed is now naturally engaging the
attention of Socialists in all

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE AUSTRIAN EXPERIENCE 155

countries" (Otto Bauer on "Tactical Lessons of the Austrian
Catastrophe"). In reality, the Austrian workers were split, and therefore defeated;
but the split was within Social Democracy, between the workers and the leadership, and
through the action of the leadership. The real question of the split in the working class
through the existence of a Social Fascist leadership is thus laid bare beyond the
possibility of concealment. Fourth, Austrian Social Democracy was, despite the smallness
of the country, in its theoretical role and in the high degree of organisation and
supposed "practical results," the leading party and the "model party"
of international Social Democracy, and in particular of Left Social Democracy. Where
German Social Democracy or British Labourism was far more glaring and shameless in its
virtual or specific repudiation of Marxism and acceptance of capitalism, the corruption of
the Austrian Social Democratic leadership was covered under the subtle sophistries of
"Austro-Marxism." Further, many of the leaders were obviously
"sincere" in their democratic-pacifist betrayal of the struggle; even though by
their policy they did everything to assist the strengthening of capitalism and the advance
of Fascism, even though by their policy they made the defeat of the struggle certain,
though they failed to prepare it, to organise it or to lead it, and did everything to
prevent it, nevertheless, when the workers launched it in spite of them, some of them took
part and suffered. This is commonly accounted to the Austrian Social Democratic leadership
for virtue and for rebuttal of the charge of "Social Fascism." On the contrary,
just this makes the real role of political treachery of the whole line of Social Democracy
far more clear and unmistakable. The question of politics is not a simple question of
subjective "sincerity." Long ago, at the Second Congress of the Communist
International, when Serrati endeavoured to defend the reformist Turati as
"sincere," and argued  against the Twentyone Conditions on the grounds
that it was impossible to produce a "since to meter " or test of sincerity,
Lenin replied: "We have no need of such an instrument as a 'sincerometer'; what we
have is an instrument to test political directions." And it is in this sense that the
role of Austrian Social Democracy is revealed with unexampled clearness, with a
completeness and relative absence of complicating factors unequalled elsewhere, as a role
of direct service and assistance to the victory of Fascism.

156. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Fifth, the armed rising of the Austrian workers, both in its strength and in its
weaknesses, has marked out and lit up the future line of the fight of the international
working class against Fascism. To the experiences and lessons of this struggle, alike
political, strategic and tactical, it will be constantly necessary to recur in every
country in the further development of the struggle against Fascism. The Second
International endeavours to draw two lessons from the Austrian events. On the one hand,
they endeavour to exploit the fight of the Austrian workers, launched in the face of the
express warnings and prohibitions of the Social Democratic leadership, as a vindication of
the "honour" of Social Democracy after the German exposure, and a proof that
Social Democracy can and does fight. On the other hand, they endeavour simultaneously to
prove that the Austrian outcome has shown the policy of armed struggle to be impossible
and foredoomed to failure; that against modern artillery nothing can avail, and that the
Austrian rising was only a "heroic gesture," nothing more ("No one doubted
that the military forces of the Government were much stronger than the power of the
workers, and that the workers could not succeed in struggle against the
Government."-Bauer). Thus Social Democracy seeks to prove two opposite conclusions.
They wish simultaneously to cover their real policy of surrender with the stolen glory of
the rising which they prohibited, and in the next breath to prove the correctness of their
policy of surrender, that struggle is impossible, and that the victory of Fascism is
consequently inevitable. Both conclusions are false. The Austrian workers fought, not
through the initiative and leadership of Social Democracy, but against the express
instructions of Social Democracy. The victory of the workers is not impossible. The lesson
of Austria shows the exact opposite, how closely victory was within reach of the workers,
had there been leadership and Organisation, had the full forces of the working class been
brought into play, had there not been division and chaos at every strategic point of the
leadership, and had the struggle been entered on at the right time, with clear political
aims and with the tactics of the offensive. Victory was only made impossible by the policy
of Social Democracy. It can be, and will be, achieved under revolutionary leadership.

157. THE BETRAYAL OF THE CENTRAL-EUROPEAN REVOLUTION 2. The Betrayal of the
Central-European Revolution. As in Germany, so in Austria the issue of the workers'
struggle cannot be judged solely on the basis of the final stage of the Fascist 
coup, of the days of February 1934, but must be seen in relation to the whole line of
development of 1918-1934. just as the strangling of the 1918 revolution in Germany by
Social Democracy laid the basis for the ultimate victory of Fascism, so also in Austria.
The victory of the proletarian revolution in Austria was fully in the grasp of the workers
in 1918-19, and was only prevented by Social Democracy. This is common ground, and is
admitted by the Social Democratic leaders themselves. Otto Bauer describes the situation
at the end of the war in his book The Austrian Revolution of 1918: There was deep ferment
in the barracks of the people's army. The people's army felt that it was the bearer of the
revolution, the vanguard of the proletariat. . . . The soldiers with arms in hand hoped
for a victory of the proletariat . . . . .. Dictatorship of the proletariat!"
"All Power to the Soviets!" was all that could be beard in the streets. He
continues: No bourgeois government could have coped with such a task. It would have been
disarmed by the distrust and contempt of the masses. It would have been overthrown in a
week by a street uprising and disarmed by its own soldiers. Only the Social Democrats
could have safely handled such an unprecedentedly difficult situation, because they
enjoyed the confidence of the working masses. . . . Only the Social Democrats could have
stopped peacefully the stormy demonstrations by negotiation and persuasion. Only the
Social Democrats could have guided the people's army and curbed the revolutionary
adventures of the working masses. . . . The profound shake-up of the bourgeois social
order was expressed in that a bourgeois government, a government without the participation
in it of the Social Democrats, had simply become unthinkable. The role of Austrian Social
Democracy was thus in fact exactly parallel to that of the German. The power of the
workers' revolution was deliberately destroyed by Social Democracy in the name of
bourgeois "democracy." The bourgeois order was only saved by the Coalition
Government f rom 1918 to 192 0 of Austrian Social Democracy and the bourgeois parties,
with

158. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Bauer as Foreign Minister and Deutsch as Minister for War. This is the background which
lies behind the victory of Fascism.* Austrian Social Democracy argued at the time in
defence of its policy that, although the proletarian revolution was certainly and easily
possible in Austria in 1918-19, it could not hope to maintain itself in so small,
dependent and isolated a state, in the face of the forces of imperialism. Yet in fact the
Soviet Republic was achieved in Hungary and Bavaria; the drive was strong throughout
Germany and Italy. Had Soviet Austria stood in with Soviet Hungary and Bavaria, an
unshakable power could have been built up in Central Europe; the whole history of post-war
Europe would have been different. Instead, Austrian Social Democracy abandoned Soviet
Hungary to its fate, and then, when the White Terror raged in Hungary, pointed to it to
prove the fate from which it claimed to have saved the Austrian workers. To-day the event
has proved that the Austrian workers were not saved from White  Terror; they were
only robbed of the possibility of victory when it was in their grasp. But at the time
Austrian Social Democracy held out before the workers, not the real alternative which
events were to demonstrate, but an imaginary golden alternative of peaceful * The British
Labour spokesman, Laski, writes of the role of Otto Bauer in his "Salute to Vienna's
Martyrs" (Daily Herald, February 17, 1934): "Austrians themselves acknowledge
that without his influence there would have been civil war in Vienna when the peace of
1919 came. That there was half a generation of peace in this troubled country Austria owes
to him more than to any man. "The privileged class has rewarded him not only by
bombarding his accompIishment to pieces, but by making certain in the years that lie ahead
the bloody revolution he strove with all his great powers to avert." The
"ingratitude" of the bourgeoisie to Social Democracy for having saved it is the
only lesson that the Labour publicist is able to draw even after this demonstration of the
iron logic of the class struggle. That the first events, the refusal and active preventing
of the path of the proletarian revolution and of civil war, when it could have been
achieved with the greatest success and the minimum of suffering, is the cause of the
second, the subsequent crushing, after capitalism has recovered its strength and prepared
its armed forces, of the workers in blood, he is unable to see. He admits that the path of
"bloody revolution" now becomes inevitable-after fifteen years of suffering,
after the maximum strengthening of the class enemy, and therefore now involving far
heavier sacrifice and bloodshed, that the so-called "peaceful" path is thus
proved to involve in the end, not the avoidance of bloodshed, but the maximum of
bloodshed. But he refuses to recognise I he plain conclusion that the whole Labour and
Social Democratic theory is thereby exploded.

159. THE BETRAYAL OF THE CENTRAL-EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

advance to socialism through "democracy." Bauer wrote in his Bolshevism or
Social Democracy? (1921): In a modem highly-civilised society, where all classes take part
in public life, no other form of class-rule is any longer durably possible  save one
which permits the subject classes freedom to influence "public opinion,"
participation in the formation of the collective will of the State, and control over its
working: a class-rule, therefore, whose basis rests on the social factors of influence of
the ruling class, and not on the use of mechanical instruments of force" (p. 1 16).
Such was the bourgeois-liberal wisdom of "Austro-Marxism," now mercilessly
exposed by the event, when Bauer and Deutsch have themselves had the opportunity to make
the acquaintance at first hand of the "mechanical instruments of force" of the
ruling class. In this way, while the Austrian workers suffered and went short under the
"democratic republic," the magnificent apartment buildings erected in Vienna for
a portion of their numbers became the "symbol" of reformist
"achievement," of the supposed "alternative" to Bolshevism-in reality,
of the temporary buying off of the workers' revolt, while the bourgeoisie was not yet
strong enough to defeat them, preliminary to smashing them. The Second International
Manifesto on the Austrian events declares: The fate of the wonderful municipal houses of
Vienna is a symbol. The constructive work of the Socialists created them; the guns of
Fascism have reduced them to smoking ruins. The "symbol" goes very much further
than the Second International appears to realise. It was not only the apartment buildings
that were struck by the guns; it was the illusions of reformism, of the
"alternative" path to Bolshevism. The Russian journalist, Ilya Ehrenburg,* has
related how in 1928 be visited these municipal buildings in all their glory, conducted by
a proud representative of Social Democracy. He admired these buildings, their planning,
their construction, their beauty, their Organisation, even though he could not fail to see
alongside the playing fountain in the beautiful garden an unemployed worker, weak with
hunger. But he asked his guide: "You have indeed constructed wonderful houses. . . .
But have you not the feeling that these houses are built on the land of another? Has not
the example of our country taught that the worker must pay with his blood for every foot
of ground *A Soviet Writer Looks at Vienna, London, 1934.

160. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

that he conquers? We had to destroy much-to destroy in order after victory to
construct. You have begun, not with the machine-gun, but with the compass and the rule.
With what will you end?" His companion smiled and replied: "We shall end with
the pacific victory of socialism. Do not forget that at the last elections seventy per
cent. of the population of Vienna voted for us. That was in 1928. In February 1934, Ilya
Ehrenburg revisited these buildings. He saw the battered walls, the gaping holes, the
debris under which people said corpses still lay, the trembling, cowering women and
children, hunger and misery, and the flags of the Heimwehr flying from the towers. He had
witnessed the "pacific victory" of socialism. Out of the conditions of bourgeois
democracy, in Austria as everywhere, Fascism was bred. The bourgeoisie, under the
protecting aegis of Social Democracy, under cover of the magnificent apartment buildings,
built up its strength anew and prepared its armed forces for  the struggle. But
Fascism was not born in a night. It took fifteen years for it to grow to full strength.
The workers, seeing what was afoot, insisted on the organisation of their Defence Corps.
The leaders promised that if democracy should once be threatened, they would act; they
developed their famous "defensive theory of violence," that violence should only
be used by the workers in defence of democracy. Meanwhile they took no action. Fascism
grew unchallenged. In 1927 the anger of the workers at the growth of Fascism and open
connivance of the State authorities broke all bounds. Following the acquittal of a Fascist
who bad murdered a worker, they rose and stormed the lawcourts of Vienna; Vienna was in
their hands, if their leaders had been ready to lead. But their leadership, in control of
the municipal administration of Vienna, sided with the bourgeoisie, with the police, with
the State authorities, and thus in fact with Fascism, against the workers. The workers'
rising was crushed in blood, with the connivance of Social Democracy. Dr. Deutsch, the
commander of the Republican Defence Corps, has reminded the world that at the time of the
Vienna disorders of 1927, when an excited mob burned down the Palace of justice, not one
military weapon of the many thousands at their command wits issued to the Republican
Defence Corps. There are photograph,; on record showing that Burgermeister Seitz and other
Socialist leaders

161. THE BETRAYAL OF THE CENTRAL-EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

at the risk of their own lives went out into the midst of the angry mob to calm them.
Ninety-five men and women were killed by police bullets on that occasion, and only five
police-figures which speak for themselves. Why did not these bloodthirsty revolutionaries
seize their opportunity, when the Heimwehr were in their infancy, the army largely
socialist, democracy unchallenged in Europe, and the Clerical Party comparatively weak? .
. . It is that the Austrian Social Democratic Party has established by its whole history
the right to the description of democratic and pacific" ( New Statesman and Nation,
February 24, 1934). Thus the approval of the bourgeois-liberal journal. The working class
will take a different view of 192 7, when Austrian Fascism could have been wiped out in
its infancy. The cost of this bourgeois-liberal approval for the "democratic"
"pacific" Social Democratic leadership has been the sacrifice of the lives of
the best of the Austrian workers, the suppression of the organised working-class movement
and the victory of Fascism. Meanwhile Austrian Social Democracy held out to the workers
the illusory prospect of the defeat of Fascism by "democracy." After the 1930
elections had returned the Social Demo ratic. Party as the largest party, with 72
representatives, against only 8 representatives for the Heimwehr, the party leadership
triumphantly reported: Democracy has inflicted a crushing defeat on the Heimwehr and its
promoters. . . . The Heimwehr movement, which until recently believed itself to be on the
eve of the final victory, is in a state of rapid decline. . . . The purely political
problems have ended with the complete victory of the working class.  (Report of the
Austrian Social Democratic Party to the Vienna Congress of the Second International, July
1931.) Such was the degree of prevision of the Social Democratic leadership, reposing
peacefully in the supposed security of paper ballots, while paralysing the real struggle
of the workers. The illusions of the Italian reformist leadership, after the success of
the elections of May 192 1, as having "submerged the Fascist reaction under an
avalanche of Red votes, or of the German reformist leadership after the elections of
November 1932, as marking the "final annihilation of Hitler," were thus exactly
paralleled in Austria. In reality Fascism was preparing its final coup, when the issue
would depend, not on paper ballots, but solely on the mass struggle and the organisation
of class force.

162. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

3. The Fascist Dictatorship and the February Rising. It was only as the sequel of the
whole above chain of development that came the culminating stage since March 7, 1933, when
Dollfuss finally threw aside the mask and proclaimed open dictatorship and the suspension
of parliament. Now, if ever, was the time to act even for the "democrats." Now
was the time for the famous "defensive theory of violence" to demonstrate its
meaning in practice. But the Social Democratic leadership still found reasons to put off
action. Social Democracy was engaged in the policy of the "toleration" of
Dollfuss as the "lesser evil" against German Nazism, and was seeking to
negotiate an agreement with Dollfuss. The Social Democratic Party did not reply with
forcible resistance. On the contrary, right down to the last it made every effort to enter
into negotiations with the Dollfuss Government. . . . This peaceful and waiting attitude
of the Social Democratic Party only encouraged the Dollfuss-Fey Government to adopt more
and more antagonistic measures against the working class and against the Social Democratic
Party. ("International Information," bulletin of the Second International,
February 18, 1934.) Why, after all the loudly repeated declarations over many years
concerning the action that would be taken "if" democracy were once attacked, was
no action taken when on March 7, 1933, Dollfuss carried through his coup d'etat and
suspended democratic institutions? Basically, because all these typical Social Democratic
asseverations of future action "if" democracy is attacked, "if" the
bourgeoisie attempt, etc., are inherently and inevitably valueless, and worse than
valueless, when the present policy is the policy of class-co- operation. The present
policy determines the future action. It is not possible, even if there were the will (and
in f act there was not the will) at a moment's notice to transform a deeply enroutined
machine and large-scale organisation of class-co-operation, pacifism and legalism within
twenty-four hours into an organ of class struggle and revolution. Only when the united
front of struggle has been effectively established in the preceding period, when the
leadership and training and practice and Organisation of struggle and militancy on all
issues has been already established, only then can there be readiness when the Fascist
coup strikes. Otherwise inevitably,  163. THE FASCIST DICTATORSHIP AND THE FEBRUARY
RISING

whatever the previous promises and threats and boasts, when the time comes, there will
be enormous hesitation, sense of overwhelming "difficulties," yearnings for a
"peaceful" settlement, prudent counsels to postpone the struggle, to save what
can be saved of the Organisation and not hazard all upon a single battle, desperate
efforts for some "way out" without a struggle, hopes against hopes that it is
not yet the final issue. This is what happened to Austrian Social Democracy. Bauer writes
of March 7, 1933, and the following eleven months: What was to be done now? The Social
Democrats knew very well that it would be very difficult for a general strike to succeed
in a period of unprecedentedly severe and prolonged unemployment. The Social Democrats
made every imaginable effort to avert a violent issue. Over a period of eleven months we
tried again and again to establish negotiations with Dollfuss. . . . Again and again we
offered to agree to extensive constitutional reforms and to the granting of extraordinary
powers to the Government for a period of two years, all that we asked in return being the
most elementary legal freedom of action for the Party and the trade unions. . . . We
over-estimated the possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement. (Bauer, "Tactical
Lessons of the Austrian Catastrophe," International Information, March 8, 1934.) Thus
"democracy" went by the board. just as German Social Democracy supported the
Bruning emergency dictatorship, and sought to come to terms with the Hitler dictatorship,
so Austrian Social Democracy was fully prepared to support a Dollfuss emergency
dictatorship, in return for a permitted existence of its Organisation under the
dictatorship (while the Communist Party was suppressed). Such was the humiliation of
"Austro-Marxism" humiliation which did not even attain its object. The Social
Democratic leadership at the party conference in October 1933, had laid down four
conditions in the event of any one of which to launch the struggle against the Fascist
dictatorship: (I) if a Fascist constitution were proclaimed without consulting parliament;
(2) if the Vienna municipal administration were superseded; (3) if the Party were
suppressed; (4) if the trade unions were suppressed. In fact this widely advertised
strategy of the four conditions never came

164. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

into operation in practice to launch the struggle. The Fascist dictatorship was
steadily engaged in consolidating its position, in disarming the workers, in arresting the
local leaders, in arming its forces, and in sapping the workers' positions in detail,
until at last the  workers found themselves compelled to resist if they were not to
be already completely wiped out before the four conditions came into operation. Thus the
four conditions were not a method to prepare the struggle, but in reality a mechanism to
paralyse the struggle. What was the consequence of this whole line of successive surrender
and protracted attempts at negotiation? Did it succeed even in "averting a violent
issue"? On the contrary. It only ensured that that violent issue should develop under
the conditions most favourable to Fascism and most unfavourable to the proletariat.
Fascism was able to sit engthen and prepare its forces, while the workers were weakened.
Bauer continues, in the statement already quoted: But during the eleven months that we
were trying to secure a peaceful denouement, the military strength of the Government
considerably increased, the Heimwehr was supplied with arms, and on the other hand, large
sections of the working class-especially the railwaymen-were discouraged, crushed and
robbed of their fighting spirit by the oppressive tactics of the Government. He is
accordingly compelled to make the significant admission (italics added): If we had
launched our attack at an earlier stage, our action would have been on a greater and more
universal scale, and the prospects of victory would have been brighter. Consequently, if
we did make a mistake, our mistake consisted in unduly prolonging our efforts for a
peaceful settlement and in unduly postponing the decisive struggle. There is no need for
us to feel ashamed of this mistake! We made it because we wanted to spare the country and
the working class the disaster of a bloody civil war." Similarly in his pamphlet
"Der Aufstand der Oesterreichischen Arbeiter," published in English under the
title "Austrian Democracy Under Fire," Bauer writes of the critical days of
March, 1933: The masses of the workers were awaiting the signal for battle. The railwaymen
were not yet so crushed as they were eleven months later. The Government's military
organisation was far weaker than in February 1934. At that time we might have won. But we
shrank

165. THE FASCIST DICTATORSHIP AND THE FEBRUARY RISING

dismayed from the battle. We still believed that we should be able to reach a peaceful
settlement by negotiation. Dollfuss had promised to negotiate with us at an early date-by
the end of March or the beginning of April- concerning a reform of the Constitution and of
the Parliamentary agenda, and we were still fools enough to trust a promise of Dollfuss.
We postponed the fight, because we wanted to spare the country the disaster of a bloody
civil war. The civil war, nevertheless, broke out eleven months later, but under
conditions that were considerably less favourable to ourselves, It was a mistakethe most
fatal of all our mistakes. Did they "spare the working class a bloody civil
war"? No; they only ensured its defeat. He admits that "the prospects of victory
would have been brighter," "we might have won," if they had only acted in
March 1933, just as 1927 would have been more favourable than 1933, and 1918-19 than 1927.
The "pacific" policy did not avert civil war in the end: it only made the
conditions the most unfavourable for the working class and ensured the heaviest defeat in
place of victory.  "Austro-Marxism" stands condemned out of its own mouth.
The waiting policy meant that Fascism was step by step able to prepare its positions. The
Defence Corps was declared illegal. The Communist Party was declared illegal. The Heimwehr
was strengthened and fully equipped with arms. Arms of the workers were searched for and
seized wherever they could be found. Local leaders were arrested. At strategic points,
particularly among the railwaymen, militants were removed and "patriotic" agents
installed. All this, of decisive importance for the future struggle, went forward without
resistance. The workers pressed more and more for resistance, but the Social Democratic
leadership held them back, thus performing its indispensable service to Fascism. The
"First Report" of "a Leader of the Austrian Social Democratic Party,"
published in the Second International bulletin on February 18, 1934, declares: The
embitterment of the working class regarding the Government's policy continually increased.
. . . The embitterment of the workers was directed more and more against the policy of the
Party Executive, which was to wait and be prepared for agreement. Growing numbers of
members of the Party demanded with increasing force that the offensive should be taken. .
. . For months past it has been increasingly difficult for the Party Executive to make the

166 . FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

embittered workers understand the necessity for this waiting Policy. Here is seen the
real split in the Austrian working classbetween the workers (the united front between the
Social Democratic and Communist workers was growing in the localities) and the Social
Fascist leadership. When the final struggle at last broke out on February 11, 1934, it
broke out in spite of and against the orders of the Social Democratic leadership. The
official "Report" already quoted makes this clear: During the last week there
were growing signs that the Government was preparing for the decisive blow. These events
caused the workers to take the following view: In this situation we can no longer allow
ourselves to be disorganised by the arrests of Schutzbund leaders and by the confiscation
of stores of arms, unless we are to confront a Fascist coup d'etat defenceless and unable
to fight within a very few days." In spite of this the Party Executive still adhered
to its line. It considered it to be necessary for the workers to wait for the results of
the negotiations between the Federal Chancellor and the Provincial Governments with regard
to the demands of the Heimwehr, and that they should not take the offensive until one of
the four cases should arise in which a defensive struggle for the defence of the
Constitutional order would according to the decision of the Party be unavoidable. On
Sunday (February, 10) officers of the Party Executive gave instructions on these lines to
comrades who reported on the agitation among the workers, and urgently warned them against
taking the initiative on their own account. But the agitation among the masses had reached
such a pitch that these warnings from the Party Executive were not heeded. Thus the honour
of the Austrian rising rests wholly with the workers, and not with the Social Democratic
leadership. The role of the  leadership was only to disorganise the struggle at
every stage. The struggle of the Austrian workers was not defeated by the superior forces
of the enemy. It was defeated by the disorganising role of the Social Democratic
leadership. This was clear in all the events leading up to the struggle. It was no less
clear in the actual struggle. Instead of being able to enter the struggle with the full
strength of their organised force on a strategic plan, with the maximum mobilisation of
the masses, and with a clear political,

THE FASCIST DICTATORSHIP AND THE FEBRUARY RISING 167. lead the workers had to enter the
struggle by local initiative from below, sporadically, partially, against hampering
opposition from above, losing the possibility of the initiative, losing the possibility of
the offensive, and thus yielding all the strategic advantage to the enemy. Many people
believe that the Socialists would have won control in Austria if all sections of the
working class had supported them. In many places the workers were split among themselves
and reached decisions too late. Several leading trade unions refused to give instructions
to strike to the factories they controlled. (Daily Herald, February 16, 1934.) The general
strike was first vetoed, and, even when the workers compelled the call to be given, after
the struggle had already begun, the call never reached the majority of the workers, and a
great part of the trade union machine made no attempt to make it effective. The railwaymen
continued to carry the Government troops, thus giving to them full liberty of movement and
concentration. The struggle of the Defence Corps was fatally cut off from the masses,
instead of being developed as a mass struggle, and even the majority of the Defence Corps
were never mobilised or brought into the struggle. There was Do political mass lead to
positive aims of the struggle, but only halting apologetic explanations of "defence
of the Constitution." Because the initiative was lost through disorganisation,
through the absence of any central leadership beginning and organising the struggle, the
possibility of the offensive and of seizing the main public buildings of the centre at the
outset was lost; the Government was able to complete its cordon of the inner city and
artillery preparations before the struggle began; the fight was turned from the first into
a defensive fight. Yet even under all these heaviest disadvantages a position was achieved
by the second day in which the Government forces weakened and the issue was in doubt: On
the Government side the troops are reported to be exhausted and disheartened. According to
the Vienna correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt, sections of the Fifth Infantry
Regiment have deserted to the Socialists. Deprived of a bully's "walkover," the
Fascist Heimwehr showed they had little stomach for a real fight. Many have flung down
their arms, and the rest may be withdrawn to barracks (Daily Herald, February 14, 1934).

168. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION  Bauer himself is compelled to admit that,
despite all the Government's artillery, the victory could have been won by the working
class, had the struggle been developed as a mass struggle: After four days' fighting the
workers of Vienna were defeated. Was this, result inevitable? Could they conceivably have
won? After the experience of those four days we can say, that if the railways had stopped
running, if the general strike had spread throughout the country, if the Schutzbund had
carried with it the great mass of the workers throughout the country, the Government could
hardly have succeeded in suppressing the rising. (Otto Bauer: Austrian Democracy Under
Fire, P. 34.) The closer the analysis of the tactical conditions and Organisation of the
struggle, no less than of the conditions leading up to the struggle, the clearer stands
out the conclusion that the Austrian rising, the greatest battle of the workers in the
postwar period, has not shown the impossibility of the victory of the workers in armed
struggle under modern conditions, as the Social Democratic leaders in all countries now
endeavour to argue. On the contrary, it has shown the certainty of future victory, once
the united front is built up, once revolutionary leadership has replaced Social Democratic
treachery, once the poison of pacifist-democratic reformism has been replaced by the
revolutionary aims, tactics and Organisation of the workingclass fight.

IT is evident from the previous survey of the historical development of Fascism in
Italy, Germany and Austria that the role of Social Democracy is of decisive importance in
the development to Fascism. The understanding of these two closely-related phenomena of
the post- war period, of modern Social Democracy and of Fascism, is of key importance for
the whole understanding of post-war capitalist politics. The whole question, however, is
ringed round with controversy, and requires very careful further analysis, if the real
issues of Fascism, and the conditions of the growth of Fascism are to be understood. It
should be explained that the term "Social Democracy" is here used only to cover
the post-war phenomenon, the post194 Social Democratic Parties which subsequently united
to form the post-war Second International or "Labour and Socialist
International" in 1923. Although the tendencies of opportunist parliamentary
corruption and absorption into the capitalist State were already strong and growing before
the war throughout the imperialist epoch, even while the nominal programme of
international revolutionary Marxism remained, and were increasingly fought by the
revolutionary wing within these parties since the beginning of the twentieth century, it
was only the decisive test of the imperialist war in 1914 that brought these tendencies to
their full working out and openly revealed these parties as having passed over to
capitalism. The direct passing over in this way since 1914 of large organisations of the
working-class movement in all the imperialist countries, and especially of the
parliamentary and trade union leadership, to open unity with capitalism and with the
capitalist State, is a big historical fact; and the subsequent evolution of these parties
since the war has played a large role, in the early years in  the defeating of the
working-class revolution, and in the sequent years in the growth of Fascism.

170. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

This latter role was already showing itself in very marked preliminary forms in those
secondary states where White dictatorships were established, in Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria
etc. In the period of the reconstruction and partial stabilisation of capitalism with the
aid of Social Democracy, and still more since the development of the world economic crisis
and the shattering of the basis of capitalist reconstruction, this character has become
increasingly marked throughout Social Democracy. A process of "fascisation" in a
whole variety of forms and stages, as well as of playing directly into the hands of
Fascism, can be traced. Nevertheless, although many disillusioned Social Democrats,
especially after the glaring example of Germany and the consequent crisis throughout the
Second International, are increasingly coming to recognise the role Social Democracy has
in practice played in the development of Fascism, yet the Communist analysis of
"Social Fascism" as the more and more dominant character of Social Democracy in
the latest period, and constituting the parallel basis with Fascism for the maintenance of
the rule of finance-capital to-day, has often aroused indignant resentment and much
misunderstanding. It is therefore necessary to examine more fully the "twin"
character of Social Democracy and Fascism as the bases of support of capitalism in the
present period. I. The Capitalist View of Social Democracy and Fascism. It will be most
useful to begin the examination of this question with a consideration of the view of
modern finance-capital on the roles of Social Democracy and Fascism. The view of
finance-capital is to be found expressed with exemplary clearness in the Deutsche
Fiihrerbriefe already referred to, or confidential bulletin of the Federation of German
Industry during the critical year 1932. These "Fiihrerbriefe" or "Letters
to Leaders" constitute a "Political-economic private correspondence,"
originally issued for confidential circulation to the heads of finance- capital, organised
in the Federation of German Industry. Nos. 72 and 75 of September 16 and 20, 1932,
contained a study of "The Social Reconsolidation of Capitalism," which is a
revealing expression of the outlook of the dominant financial groups. The writer sets out
from the basic viewpoint that the maintenance

THE CAPITALIST VIEW OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND FASCISM 171.

of capitalist rule depends on the splitting of the working class: The necessary
condition for any social reconsolidation of bourgeois rule possible in Germany after the
war is the splitting of the workers' movement. Any united workers' movement springing up
from below must be revolutionary, and this rule would not be able to bold out against it
for long, not even with the means of military power. The main danger is thus the united
working-class front: against this even military force could not long prevail. Capitalism
 accordingly requires a social basis outside its own ranks and splitting the working
class. This has been provided in the post- war period by Social Democracy. The problem of
consolidating the bourgeois regime in post-war Germany is generally determined by the fact
that the leading bourgeoisie, who have control of the national economy, have become too
small in order to uphold their rule alone. They require for this rule, if they do not wish
to rely on the extremely dangerous weapon of purely military force, an alliance with
strata which do not belong to them socially, but which render them the indispensable
service of anchoring their rule in the people, and thereby being the actual and final
bearers of this rule. This last or "outermost bearer" of bourgeois rule was, in
the first period of post-war consolidation, Social Democracy. So far the analysis is
simple. Social Democracy had provided the basis for the maintenance of capitalist rule and
splitting the working class. But what has made it possible for Social Democracy to split
the working class? What is the social basis of Social Democracy? Here the analysis of the
spokesman of finance-capital comes very close to Lenin's analysis of the causes of the
split in the working class in imperialist countries. The writer finds the basis of Social
Democracy, and of its splitting of the working class, in the privileged conditions, based
on social legislation and concessions, of a favoured, organised section of the working
class: In the first reconstruction era of the bourgeois post-war regime, in the era from
1923-4 to 1929-30, the split in the working class was founded on the achievements in
regard to wages and social policy into which Social Democracy capitalised the
revolutionary upsurge. Thanks to its social character as being originally a workers'
party, Social Democracy brought into the system of reconstruction at that

172. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

time, in addition to its purely political force, something more valuable and enduring,
namely the organised working class, and while paralysing their revolutionary energy
chained them fast to the bourgeois State. It is true that November socialism was also an
ideological mass flood and movement, but it was not only 'that, for behind it there stood
the power of the organised working class, the social power of the trade unions. This flood
could ebb but the trade unions remained, and with them, or more correctly stated, thanks
to them, the Social Democratic Party remained. On this basis the main body of the
organised working class was "chained fast to the bourgeois State" through Social
Democracy and the trade unions, while Communism was kept outside as by a "sluice
mechanism": These (the achievements in regard to wages and social policy) functioned
as a sort of sluice mechanism through which, in a falling labour market, the employed and
firmly organised part of the working class enjoyed a graduated, but nevertheless
considerable advantage compared with the unemployed and fluctuating mass of the lower
categories, and were relatively protected against the full effects of unemployment and the
general critical situation on their standard of  living. The political frontier
between Social Democracy and Communism runs almost exactly along the social and economic
line of this sluicedam; and all the efforts of Communism, which, however, have so far been
in vain, are directed towards forcing a breach into this protected sphere of the trade
unions. This system worked well enough until the world economic crisis began to destroy
the basis of stabilisation. The economic crisis compelled capitalism to wipe out the
"achievements" of wages and social policy, and thereby to undermine the basis of
Social Democracy. But this raised the danger of the workingclass forces passing to
Communism. Therefore it was necessary to find a new instrument for splitting the
workers-National Socialism: The process of the transition which we are undergoing at
present, because the economic crisis necessarily destroys these achievements, passes
through the stage of acute danger that, with the disappearance of these achievements, the
mechanism of disrupting the working class which is based upon these achievements will
cease to operate, with the result that the working class will begin to turn in the
direction of Communism and the bourgeois rule will be faced with the

THE CAPITALIST VIEW OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND FASCISM 173.

necessity of setting up a military dictatorship. This stage would mark the beginning of
the phase of the incurable sickness of bourgeois rule. As the old sluice mechanism can no
longer be sufficiently restored, the only possible means of saving bourgeois rule from
this abyss is to effect the splitting of the working class and its tying to the State
apparatus by other and more direct means. Herein lie the positive possibilities and the
tasks of National Socialism. The new conditions mean, however, a change of the form of
state. The tying of the organised working class to the State through Social Democracy
requires the parliamentary mechanism; conversely, the liberal parliamentary constitution
can only be acceptable for monopoly capitalism provided Social Democracy successfully
controls and splits the working class. If capitalism is compelled to destroy the basis of
Social Democracy, then it is equally compelled to transform the parliamentary constitution
into a non-parliamentary "restricted" (i.e., Fascist) constitution. The tying of
the trade union bureaucracy to Social Democracy stands and falls with parliamentarism. The
possibility of a liberal social constitution of monopoly capitalism is determined by the
existence of an automatic mechanism which disrupts the working class. A bourgeois regime
based on a liberal bourgeois constitution must not only be parliamentary; it must rely for
support on Social Democracy and allow Social Democracy adequate achievements. A bourgeois
regime which destroys these achievements must sacrifice Social Democracy and
parliamentarism, must create a substitute for Social Democracy, and must go over to a
restricted social constitution. The solution of the problem of the maintenance of
capitalism in crisis the writer accordingly finds in National Socialism and the
establishment of a "restricted" or Fascist regime. The writer finds in 
the role of National Socialism in the present period a remarkable parallel, in his view,
to the role of Social Democracy in the preceding period. The parallelism is indeed really
striking. The then Social Democracy (from 1918 to 1930) and present-day National Socialism
both perform similar functions in that they both were the gravediggers of the preceding
system, and then, instead of leading the masses to the revolution proclaimed by them, led
them to the new formation of bourgeois rule. The comparison which has often been drawn
between Ebert and Hitler is also valid in this respect.

174. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Both appeal to the anti-capitalist yearning for emancipation; both promise a new
"social" or "national" Commonwealth. From this the final conclusion is
drawn: The parallelism itself shows that National Socialism has taken over from Social
Democracy the task of providing the mass support for the rule of the bourgeoisie in
Germany. Such is the exposition of the private thought of the financecapitalist oligarchy
on the role of its two instruments, Social Democracy and Fascism. We have so fax
reproduced this exposition without criticism, because it has independent value as an
authoritative statement, all the clearer through not having been written for public
consumption, of the real viewpoint of finance-capital. It is a valuable political document
which may be recommended for the study of disciples both of Social Democracy and of
Fascism. It will be noted that this remarkably candid and clear-headed statement of the
real case for Fascism, as seen by its actual paymasters and controllers, shares Done Of
the mystical, national, racial, "corporative," chauvinist nonsense with which
Fascism is presented for public consumption, but is thoroughly rational and hard-headed.
To this it will be important to return in considering the so- called "theory" of
Fascism. The actual analysis, however, although a useful startingpoint of discussion on
the question of Social Democracy and of Fascism, requires in certain respects criticism.
The writer sees correctly the mechanics of capitalist post-war rule on the basis of Social
Democracy. But he writes as if Fascism "has taken over f rom Social Democracy the
task of providing the mass support for the rule of the bourgeoisie." Yesterday Social
Democracy performed this role; to-day it is Fascism; each has its period. Social Democracy
and Fascism are thus seen as performing an essentially identical role, only in differing
periods, and under different conditions, and therefore with differing methods and forms of
state constitution. This is, however, too simple, and is not correct. Both exist together;
and each performs a distinctive role, supplementing one another. Fascism bases itself
primarily, for its social basis, on the miscellaneous petit-bour geois strata, the
peasantry, the declassed elements and backward workers. Social Democracy bases itself on
the upper strata of the industrial workers. The bourgeoisie builds its rule

THE CAPITALIST VIEW OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND FASCISM 175.

on the support of both, bringing now one, now the other, to the  forefront, and
utilising both for its support. Fascism never becomes the main basis of the bourgeoisie
(although it may become its main and sole governmental instrument when the crisis requires
the coercion of all the workers, and the hold of Social Democracy is in danger of
weakening), because Fascism never wins the main body of the industrial workers with
traditions of organisation-the sole power that can overthrow capitalism. Here the role of
Social Democracy remains of decisive importance, even after the establishment of the
Fascist dictatorship. This is seen with obvious clearness in those countries, e.g.,
Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain under De Rivera, etc., where Social Democracy is
tolerated under a Fascist dictatorship. But it is also true in those countries of fully
completed Fascist dictatorship--Germany, Italy-where Social Democracy as an Organisation
is formally suppressed and the trade unions absorbed into the Fascist front. Only so far
as Social Democratic influence, ideology and traditions still dominate the industrial
workers, disorganising the revolutionary fight, preventing the united front and mass
struggle, only so long can the rule of capitalism be maintained, even in its Fascist
forms. In these countries also, if the Fascist dictatorship weakens, Social Democracy
stands ready to come to the rescue of capitalism. The distinction of Social Democracy and
Fascism is no less important to understand than the parallelism. Both are instruments of
the rule of monopoly capital. Both fight the working-class revolution. Both weaken and
disrupt the class organisations of the workers. But their methods differ.* Fascism
shatters the class organisations of the workers from without, opposing their whole basis,
and putting forward an alternative "national" ideology. Social Democracy
undermines the class organisations of the workers from within, building on the basis of
the previous independent movement and "Marxist" ideology, which still holds the
workers' traditions and discipline, in order more effectively to carry through the policy
of capital and smash al militant struggle.

*Left Social Democrats often say of Communism: "Our aims are the same; we differ
only in our methods." It would be more correct to say of Social-Democracy and
Fascism: "Their aims are the same (the saving Of capitalism from the working-class
revolution); they differ only in their methods."

176 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION  Fascism accordingly requires for its full
realisation the "totalitarian" terroristic class-State. Social Democracy
controls the workers most favourably and successfully in the liberal-parliamentary
class-State, utilising its own "internal" methods of discipline, and occasional
Statecoercion, for the suppression of all militant struggle. Fascism operates primarily by
coercion alongside of deception. Social Democracy operates primarily by deception,
alongside of coercion. It is this combined relationship of difference in method and
parallelism in basic aim and role that underlies Stalin's definition, given already in
1924 ("Main Factors of the Present International Situation," Communist
International, English edition 1924, No. 6), that "Social Democracy objectively
represents the moderate wing of Fascism." 2. The Germs of Fascism in Social
Democracy. Fascism not only historically draws its origin in large part from Social
Democracy in the sense that many of its principal leaders spring from Social Democracy:
Mussolini, former editor of the Italian Socialist central organ Avanti; Pilsudski, former
leader of the Polish Socialist Party; Mosley, former Minister of the second MacDonald
Labour Government. Fascism also draws its ideology mainly from the lines already worked
out by Social Democracy.

The attempt can be made to trace earlier strands and tendencies in pre-war non-Marxist
forms of Socialism already giving hints of aspects later developed in Fascism: e.g.,
Lassalle's "national" type of socialism (the Lassallean party's deputies, it may
be noted, voted the war credits of 1870, while the Marxists abstained), Prussian
tendencies and coquetting with Bismarck; Proudhon's credit-fallacies and opposition to the
class struggle; Sorel's cult of violence, "social myths" for massdeception, and
denunciation of democracy in the abstract; the Syndicalist cult of
"occupational" lines of division; Fabian super-class State glorification;
Hyndman's already pre-war social chauvinism and big navy agitation. The Fascist writers
seek to trace their spiritual ancestry from three main sources: Mazzini (the old liberal
democrat would turn in his grave), Proudhon and Sorel. But this is mere myth-making.
Fascism

THE GERMS OF FASCISM IN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 177.

is essentially a product of the post-war general crisis of capitalism, and has no
spiritual ancestry. Fascism is in practice an abortion consequent on the miscarriage of
the proletarian social revolution. It is from 1914, when Social Democracy directly
abandoned Marxism and internationalism, that the characteristic trends of ideology akin to
Fascism begin. A study of the principal extreme expressions of the war-socialists,
especially of Lensch, Parvus and Cunow in Germany, Herve in France, or Blatchford in
England, would reveal many striking resemblances with subsequent Fascism. "In this
world war," wrote Lensch in 1916, "Germany completes its revolution" 
(the typical use of "revolution to cover the most extreme monopolist dictatorship and
chauvinism); "at the head of the German Revolution stands Bethman-Hollweg."
Cunow declared that Social Democracy must adapt itself to imperialism and throw overboard
the remains of liberal-democratic ideology about "the right of nations to political
independence." "England in the war" wrote the war-socialist Hanisch
"represents the reactionary, and Germany the revolutionary principle." All these
illustrate the use of "revolutionary" phrases and denunciation of obsolete
"liberal-democratic" superstitions to cover in practice complete subservience to
monopolist capitalism and chauvinism. Denial of internationalism, advocacy of classunity
or the "sacred truce," and service of the capitalist State in the name of
"socialist" or "revolutionary" phrasesthese are the common
starting-point of modern Social Democracy since 1914, and, in a more developed form, of
Fascism. But it is in the post-war period that the ideology of Social Democracy becomes
the real breeding-ground for Fascism. Social Democracy emerged from the war with two
clearly marked characteristics: first, close unification of each party with its own
"national," i.e., imperialist State, and denial of any save the most formal
"letter-box" internationalism; second, class-co-operation, in the forms of
coalition ministerialism and trade union collaboration, to help to build up capitalist
prosperity as the necessary condition of working-class prosperity. It will be seen that
these basic principles are already close to the basic principles of "National
Socialism." Social Democracy after the war was faced with two tasks: first to defeat
the working-class revolution; second, to help to

178. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

reconstruct the shattered structure of capitalism. The first brought the Social
Democratic leadership into close alliance with the reactionary, militarist and White Guard
circles, and trained it in undertaking governmental responsibility in shooting down the
militant workers. The second task of capitalist reconstruction, after the period of direct
civil war was closed, required ever closer collaboration of Social Democracy and the trade
unions with monopoly capitalism. This collaboration of Social Democracy with capitalism in
the period of reconstruction and stabilisation required the development of a corresponding
new ideology. The war-time ideology of the "national danger" and the necessity
of unity against "the common enemy" could no longer serve in peace time. In the
period of reconstruction and stabilisation. a new theoretical basis had to be developed.
The collapse of capitalism, it was argued, was not in the interest of the working class;
the working class required a prospering capitalism as the basis of the advance to
socialism; "it is useless to socialise misery," as Kautsky declared, pointing to
the "economic ruin" of Russia as the warning of the consequence of the
alternative path. Capitalism had not yet exhausted its development; it had still before it
the advance to a new flourishing era of "organised capitalism"; this was the
path to socialism. The task of the workers was to help to rebuild capitalism, increase
production, and help to develop the new rationalised "organised capitalism,"
with increasing participation economically  through the trade unions ("economic
democracy," Mondism) and politically through Social Democracy in the Government; this
was the true path of advance as against the "catastrophic" policies of
Communism. In the period of stabilisation, rationalisation and the short-lived boom of
1927-9 this new ideology of Social Democracy reached its highest development. Marxism
began to be more or less openly thrown overboard, especially by the trade union
leadership, even though it remained formally on the programme. The leading German trade
union theorist, Tarnov, came out openly at the Breslau Congress of the German Trade Union
Federation: Marxism as a leading ideology of the working-class movement has outlived
itself. But as a real great mass movement cannot exist without a corresponding ideology,
therefore we, the leaders of the trade unions, must create a new ideology.

THE GERMS OF FASCISM IN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 179.

The essence of the "new ideology" was in fact the very old pre- Marxist
(originally Liberal, later Fabian and finally Fascist) theory of the identity of interests
of the working class and capitalism. As another leading theorist of the German trade
unions declared: One must not lose sight of the fact that the working class is a part of
the capitalist system, the downfall of which system is its own downfall; and therefore the
great historical duty of the working class is to obtain by means of the regulation of its
place in that system the improvement of the whole social structure, which is again
equivalent to the betterment of its own social situation. The same line of thought was
expressed by the General Council of the British Trades Union Congress in its Report to the
Swansea Congress in 1928, when it analysed three possible courses before the trade unions,
and advocated the third (the Mondist line of collaboration with capitalism) as the best:
The third course is for the trade union movement to say boldly that not only is it
concerned with the prosperity of industry, but that it is going to have a voice as to the
way industry is carried on, so that it can influence the new developments that are taking
place. The ultimate policy of the movement can find more use for an efficient industry
than for a derelict one, and the unions can use their power to promote and guide the
scientific reorganisation of industry as well as to obtain material advantages from the
reorganization. Social Democracy and the trade unions under its leadership thus become, in
the Social Democratic theory, constituent parts of modern capitalist organisation and of
the capitalist State (the Webbs had in fact fully worked out this theory long before the
war; and this theory is the underlying thread of their History of Trade Unionism, as
indeed of all their work). "Social Democracy to-day," affirmed Hilferding at the
Kiel Congress of the German Social Democratic Party in 1927, "is an indispensable
element of the State." "Without the trade unions," wrote Citrine,
"industry under modern conditions could not function effectively" (W. M.
Citrine, "Trade Unionism-the Bulwark against Chaos," Reynolds' News, September
4, 1932). Every development of organisation and strengthening of monopoly 
capitalism and its dictatorship is thus hailed as the advance of "Socialism."
Characteristic of this is the Labour Party's advocacy of the "public
corporation" (i.e., Stateprotected capitalist trust, with guaranteed dividends for
the

180. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

shareholders) as the form of modern socialism--exemplified by the London Passenger
Transport Act, which was introduced by a Labour Government and carried through by a
Conservative Government, and hailed by the Labour Party as a triumph of
"Socialism." On this the conservative Times declared: The principal objections
which have been raised may be grouped under three main heads-namely that the Bill is a
"Socialist" measure; that it creates a dangerous monopoly; and that it will
raise the cost of transport. None of these criticisms will really bear very prolonged
examination. It is true that the Bill in its original form was produced by a Socialist
Government, and that the then Minister of Transport, Mr. Morrison, nearly succeeded in
damning it for ever by claiming it as a triumph of Socialism. But where in fact does the
Socialism come in? On what point of principle will the new transport undertaking differ
from the Central Electricity Board or from Imperial Communications Company, both of which
were created by a Conservative Government? Like them indeed it is a statutory monopoly,
and therefore subject to a certain degree of public control; but it is privately, not
publicly owned. (Times editorial, "The London Traffic Bill," December 1, 1932.)
It is obvious that the "public corporation" of the Labour Party and Social
Democracy bears close analogies in principle to the Fascist "corporation" as the
system of organisation for industry. On this basis Social Democracy upholds the modern
developments of monopolist capitalism as already the advent of "Socialism." As
the German Social Democratic leader, Dittmann, declared at the Magdeburg Congress of the
Social Democratic Party: We are no longer living under capitalism; we are living in the
transition period to socialism, economically, politically, socially. In Germany we have
ten times as many socialist achievements to defend as they have in Russia. The world
economic crisis dealt a heavy blow to this ideology. But Social Democracy adapted itself
to the crisis by an extension of its theories. It was now necessary, it declared, to
"save" capitalism from the menace of chaos and proletarian revolution. The
Leipzig Congress of the German Social Democratic Party in 1931 gave out the watchword:
"We must be the

THE GERMS OF FASCISM IN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 181.

physicians of ailing capitalism." Vandervelde, the Chairman of the Second
International, proclaimed in the Belgian Chamber of Deputies in 1932: The capitalist
system is cracking in all its parts. It can only be saved by serious and urgent measures.
We are at the eleventh hour. Take care  that the proletariat, like Samson, does not
bring crashing down the columns of the temple. (E. Vandervelde, Le Peuple, May 7, 1932.)
And the French Socialist, Montel, had indeed already proclaimed before the crisis
(Republique Sociale, November 15, 1928): "The Socialist Party will present itself as
the only party capable of saving bourgeois society." Through the whole of this line
and propaganda it is evident that Social Democracy was in practice preparing and smoothing
the way for Fascism and for the conceptions of Fascism. And indeed even after the victory
of Fascism Leipart, the leader of German trade unionism, directly used the same line of
argument to prove that the trade unions could be accepted by Fascism as subservient
instruments of the Fascist dictatorship: The trade unions have come into being as the
organised self-help of the working class; and in the course of their history through
natural causes have become more and more fused with the State itself. The social tasks of
the trade unions have to be fulfilled no matter what the form of the State regime is. The
trade unions are fully prepared, even beyond the field of wages and working conditions, to
enter into permanent co-operation with the employers' organisations. A State supervision
over such collaboration could in certain circumstances be conducive towards raising its
value and rendering its execution more easy. The trade unions do not claim to influence
directly the policy of the State. Their task in this respect can only be to direct the
just claims of the workers to the attention of the Government with reference to its
measures of social and economic policy and legislation, and also to be of service to the
Government and Parliament through its knowledge and experience in this field. This was the
official declaration of German trade unionism in March 1933, offering its alliance to the
Fascist dictatorship. It was received with expressions of pain and indignation in the
non-German Social Democratic Press as a "shameful capitulation." Yet the line
expressed is exactly identical with the line

182. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

of argument on the question of trade unionism and the State, employed by a Citrine in
Britain, a Green in the United States, or a Jouhaux in France. With this may be compared
Mussolini's suggestion in 1921 of a possible alliance of reformist Social Democracy and
Fascism: In the field of social legislation and of improvement in the standard of life of
the working classes, the Socialists may find unexpected allies within Fascism. The
salvation of the country may be assured, -not by the suppression of the antithesis between
Fascism and Socialism, but by their reconciliation within Parliament. A collaboration with
the Socialists is quite possible, especially at a later stage, after the clarification of
ideas and tendencies, under which the Socialist Party at this moment labours, is ended. It
is evident that the co-existence of Intransigent and Reformist Socialists in the same
 party will in the course of time become impossible. Either revolution or reform
resulting from participation in the responsibilities of power. (Mussolini, Popolo
d'Italia, May 22, 1921.)

The course of events rendered this direct alliance unnecessary; but Mussolini
subsequently took the reformist trade union leaders, D'Aragona and his colleagues, into
his service. Social Democracy thus prepared the way ideologically for Fascism: first, by
the abandonment or corruption of Marxism; second, by the denial of internationalism and
attaching of the workers to the service of "their own" imperialist State; third
by the war on Communism and the proletarian revolution; fourth, by the distortion of
"Socialism" or the use of vaguely "socialist" phrases ("the new
social order," the "commonwealth," "industry as a public
service," etc.) to cover monopolist capitalism; fifth, by the advocacy of
class-collaboration and the unification of the working-class organisations with the
capitalist State. All this provides the ideological basis and groundwork of Fascism, which
represents the final stage of the policy of the complete absorption of the working class,
bound hand and foot, into capitalism and the capitalist State. This whole propaganda and
line of Social Democracy confused, weakened and battered down the class- conscious
socialist outlook of those workers who were under its influence, prevented the spread of
revolutionary Marxist understanding, fostered semi-Fascist conceptions of nationalism,
imperialism and classcollaboration, and thus left the masses an easy prey to Fascism.

HOW SOCL41 DEMOCRACY ASSISTS FASCISM TO POWER 183.

3. How Social Democracy Assists Fascism to Power. In the historical examination of the
Italian, German and Austrian examples in the previous two chapters we have seen in
practice how Social Democracy assists Fascism to power. It is therefore only necessary now
to summarise these results of what historical experience has demonstrated. First, Social
Democracy disorganises the proletariat and the proletarian struggle. The Social Democratic
and trade union leadership act as an agency of the employers and of the ruling class
within the working-class ranks, preaching defeatism and opposition to struggle, and, where
the outbreak of working-class struggle becomes inevitable, directly disrupting the
struggle from within. This is most clearly seen in the role of Social Democracy in
strikes. A conspicuous example of this process, in view of the subsequent revelations, was
afforded by the great munitions strike in Germany in January 1918, which nearly brought
Germany out of the war and into unity with the Russian Revolution. The Social Democratic
leaders, Ebert, Braun and Scheidemann, by decision of their Executive, took over the
direction of the strike, even calling on the workers to disobey mobilisation orders. Yet
their object in coming on the strike committee, as declared by them many years later, was
to strangle the strike. In 19224 Ebert brought a libel suit against the charge of treason
for having led the strike of January 1918. In this trial he made known that the Executive
had passed a  secret resolution instructing them to take over the leadership of the
strike in order to bring it to an end. Ebert stated in court (Times, December 11, 1924):
The Socialists bad been requested to take control of the strike in order to avoid the
worst. Herr Ledebour had told the strikers that the strike would be lost if the Majority
Socialists came on to the Strike Committee, and at this point he (Herr Ebert) had joined
it in order to restore the balance. . . . He declared that he had entered the Strike
Committee to bring the strike to an end as soon as possible. Scheidemann stated in the
same trial (Times, December 13, 1924): The strike broke out without our knowledge. We
joined the Strike Committee with the firm intention of putting a speedy end to the strike
by negotiating with the Government. There was a

184. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

great deal of opposition to us in the Strike Committee: we were known as "the
strike stranglers." Exactly the same process was conducted by the Labour Party and
Trades Union Congress General Council leadership in the British General Strike of 1926,
which was only called, according to MacDonald (Socialist Review, June 192 6), because
"if no general strike had been declared industry would have been almost as much
paralysed by unauthorised strikes." J. H. Thomas explained subsequently in the
capitalist journal Answers, that, although opposed to the strike, he "did not resign
because I felt certain that I could do far more good by staying in than by going
out." The object of the leadership, he explained to the House of Commons on May 13,
1926, was to prevent the struggle "getting out of the hands of those who would be
able to exercise some control." The Conservative Home Secretary, Joynson- Hicks,
analysing the causes of the defeat of the General Strike, put forward as the main cause
that "the responsible trade-union leaders retained their hold upon the trade unions,
and took the constitutional course of admitting the general strike was illegal and called
it off" (Joynson Hicks, letter to the Twickenham Conservative Association, August 14,
1926). The same process was demonstrated in Italy over the occupation of the factories,
where the reformist leadership achieved what all the Government forces had to confess
themselves unable to achieve-the restoration of the factories to capitalism. But this
direct strike-breaking (examples of which on a greater or lesser scale are familiar every
year and almost every month to the workers in every country) is only the plainest and
simplest expression of a universal process of disorganisation and disruption of the
working- class front, preaching of confidence in capitalism, close alliances with the
class enemy, and war on the militant workers. It is only after conspicuous and repeated
disruption of the working-class front after tkis fashion by Social Democracy from within,
and consequent weakening and discouragement of the workers, that the way is opened for
Fascism to advance. The betrayal of the General Strike was followed by Mondism-a first
step towards Fascism, and welcomed as such by the Italian Fascist Press (it may be noted
that Mond openly declared his sympathy for Fascism).  HOW SOCIAL DEMOCRACY ASSISTS
FASCISM TO POWER 185.

The surrender of the factories in Italy was followed immediately by the Fascist
offensive, opening at Bologna and going continuously forward to the establishment of the
Fascist State in 19 2 2. The second Labour Government's assistance to the offensive
against the workers was followed by the landslide of the National Government vote of 1931
and the first beginnings of a serious Fascist movement in Britain. The Social Democratic
support of the Bruning dictatorship and hunger-offensive was immediately followed by the
sweeping advance of Fascism in Germany. This is the principal way in which Social
Democracy assists the advance of Fascism to power-by disorganising the workingclass front,
by breaking strikes, by denunciation of the class struggle, by preaching legalism and
trust in capitalism, by expulsion of all militant elements and splitting of the trade
unions and working- class organisations. The war on Communism is placed in the forefront
by Social Democracy. The German example has shown to what lengths of direct alliance with
the militarist and White Guards Social Democracy will go in order to crush the
revolutionary workers.* But the slogan of the war on Communism is the slogan of Fascism.
Social Democracy and Fascism offer, in effect, rival services to the bourgeoisie for the
slaying of Communism. With the further development of the post-war period Social Democracy
helps forward the advance towards Fascism more and more positively by assisting the
strengthening of the capitalist mechanism and of the capitalist dictatorship. Social
Democracy assists to carry through the economic measures for the strengthening of
capitalist monopoly (rationalisation, etc.); it supports all the Bruning and Roosevelt
types of intensified capitalist dictatorship, and itself helps to introduce and operate
measures of intensified dictatorship. This was signally shown by the second Labour
Government of 1929-31, with its Coal Mines Act and London Traffic Bill, its imposition of
textile wage cuts by arbitration awards, its arrest and sentencing of hundreds of workers
under the Trade Union Act, and its lathi-rule and

*Compare the statement of the first British Labour Prime Minister, Mac Donald, over the
forged Zinoviev letter in 1924: "Who is it that has stood against Bolshevism?
Liberals have contributed nothing, Tories nothing.... All the work has been done by Labour
Leaders and Labour Party leaders."

186. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

imprisonment of sixty thousand in India. In the same way Severing as Minister of the
Interior shot down the workers' May Day demonstrations in Berlin in 1929. Similarly, the
Prussian Social Democratic Government actually boasted in its own defence, when 
removed by von Papen, that it "had caused more deaths on the Left than on the
Right": The Prussian Government is in a position with police-statistics to prove that
police interference has caused more deaths on the Left than on the Right, and that police
measures have caused more wounds on the Left than on the Right. (Braun-Severing Memorandum
to Hindenburg, protesting against deposition: B. Z. am Mittag, July 19, 1932.)

In the final stage, as the Fascist movement advances closer to direct power, Social
Democracy gives its final and decisive assistance by opposing and banning the united
working-class front against Fascism- the sole means to prevent Fascism coming to power-and
concentrating hopes in illusory legal defences, the ballot, "democracy,"
moderate bourgeois governments and finally even the support of pre-Fascist and nearFascist
dictatorships Bruning, Dollfuss) as the "lesser evil." It is the Social
Democratic Minister Severing that bans and dissolves the Red Front, while permitting the
Storm Troops. It is Social Democracy that refuses the repeated urgent appeals of Communism
for the united front during the critical year of 1932 and the first quarter of 1933. This
line makes inevitable the victory of Fascism.

4. The Question of the Split in the Working Class. The crucial importance of the united
working-class fight against Fascism is seen by all to-day, especially after the German
example of the disastrous consequences of disruption. Nevertheless, in spite of the German
example, Social Democracy continues to refuse and oppose the united front in all
countries. At the same time, alongside this direct refusal of the united front, the cause
of the split in the working class is often attempted to be misrepresented by Social
Democracy as due to Communism and the Communist International, which are accused of
dividing the working- class forces. It is therefore necessary to give further
consideration to this all- important question of the split in the working class and its
causes.

THE QUESTION OF THE SPLIT IN THE WORKING CLASS 187.

The analysis of the split in the working class as due to Communism and the Communist
International is both historically and in current practice incorrect. The split in the
working class dates from 1914-before the Communist International existed. It was caused by
the dominant official leadership of the Social Democratic Parties abandoning their pledges
and obligations before the International, directly contravening the principles on which
their parties were built, and passing to unity with capitalism. The split took formal
shape when this leadership expelled those deputies who voted against the war credits, in
accordance with their international obligations, and the sections who supported them. All
this took place already during the war, before the Communist International existed. To
argue that the responsibility for the split rests with the revolutionaries is to argue
that Liebknecht  should have voted the war credits. The split deepened as the issue
of the imperialist war developed into the issue of the working-class revolution or the
support of the White Guards in shooting down the workers' revolution. The Mensheviks
united with the Tsarists and foreign imperialism to take up arms against the workers'
rule; the German Social Democratic leaders armed the counterrevolutionary officers' corps
to shoot down the revolutionary workers. The breach of 1914 bad widened to civil war, with
Social Democracy on the capitalist side of the barricades. An unbridgeable barrier was
created-as unbridgeable as the division of the classes. All this process of 1914-19 had
already developed, revealing to the full the fact of the division of the working class,
owing to the existence of an imperialist wing in the working-class camp, before the
revolutionary sections finally organised the Communist International in 1919. To regard
the Communist International as the cause of the split is to mistake the effect for the
cause. Lenin gave the call for the formation of the Communist International alreadv in the
autumn of 1914, only after and because the majority Social Democratic leadership had
destroyed the old Second International, trampled international socialism under foot, and
openly united with capitalism. There was no other way to continue the struggle for
international socialism. It is obvious that the responsibility of the split lies wholly
with those sections that abandoned the party programme and

188. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

united with capitalism, and not with those sections that stood by the party programme
and continued to fight capitalism, This responsibility, begun in 1914, carried forward
through the civil wars of 19 17-2 1, continues in the issues of to-day. It is the unity of
the Social Democratic leadership with capitalism that inevitably splits the working class
and is the cause of the split. This is the root of the question of the split. But given
this split of the working-class organisations, which can only be finally overcome by the
re-union of the mass of the workers (through the experience of the struggle, through
ideological controversy, through conviction by their own experience) on the basis of the
class struggle against capitalism, that is, finally on the basis of Communism, the
immediate urgent question becomes that of the present common fight against the capitalist
and Fascist offensive. It is evident that in this situation the need is for all workers
and working- class organisations, whatever their political outlook, to combine in a common
front for the immediate fight on the maximum possible agreed basis of fight. rhis is the
meaning of the united front, for which the Communist International has consistently
striven since 192 1. But it is here that Social Democracy, after causing the original
split, perpetuates and deepens the split of the working class by opposing the united
front, expelling all sections that support it, and even wrecking tile working-class
organisations to maintain its domination. This is shown with conspicuous clearness in the
decisively  important question of the trade unions. The Communist line is for a
single united trade union Organisation, embracing all workers, independent of their
political views, within which the revolutionary workers conduct propaganda for their
viewpoint or proposals, according to the principles of trade union democracy. Social
Democracy rejects this viewpoint, and seeks to make membership of a trade union, or active
membership (delegate positions, official positions) dependent on holding reformist views,
on subscribing to the Labour Party programme, etc. To achieve this purpose the Social
Democratic trade union leadership habitually expels, not only individual trade unionists
(often outstanding militants with long records in the struggle and elected at the top of
the polls by their fellow members) but whole sections and organisations and even
majorities, if

THE QUESTION OF THE SPLIT IN THE WORKING CLASS 189.

these express a revolutionary viewpoint, in order to maintain the domination of Social
Democracy. It is evident that this system of Social Democracy in the unions means the
smashing of the unions as the united organisations of the workers. Reference is often made
by Social Democrats to the existence of "Red Unions" as evidence of the role of
Communism in splitting the trade union movement. But it is not realised by many who hear
these charges in good faith that the Red Unions, in the countries with a divided trade
union movement, have developed historically as the consequence of the Social Democratic
policy of expulsions and denial of trade union democracy. The case of the Scottish
Mineworkers is the classic example of this process in Britain, where the majority of the
members of the union constitutionally elected a new executive and officials with an
overwhelming revolutionary majority, but the old reformist executive and officials refused
to vacate office, and proceeded to expel one of the two largest districts, the F ife
district; after exhausting every constitutional effort for unity, the revolutionary
majority were thus compelled to form the United Mineworkers of Scotland. Similarly in
France the C.G.T.U or Unitary Confederation of Labour (revolutionary) only came into
existence at the end of 1921 after the revolutionary trade unionists had won a
constitutional majority in the old Confederation of Labour, and the old reformist
leadership had met this majority by a series of expulsions to convert it into a minority;
the Congress constituting the C.G.T.U. was actually attended by a majority 1,564) of the
unions belonging to the old C.G.T. The responsibility for the split rests with the
reformists. The aim of Social Democracy in thus splitting the trade unions in order to
maintain its domination was stated with extreme clearness by the General Council's
spokesman at the Trades Union Congress of 1926, in defending the ban of the General
Council on Trades Councils affiliating to the Minority Movement: If the Council had agreed
to this affiliation, within a short time the Minority Movement would become the majority.
(A. Conley, General Council, at the Bournemouth Trades Union Congress, 192 6: Daily Herald
report, Sept. 8,19 2 6.)  It was thus to prevent the revolutionary minority becoming
the

190. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

majority by constitutional means of propaganda and persuasion that the reformist
leadership adopted the ruinous policy of wrecking the unions. The lengths to which they
were prepared to go in this policy were declared by the President of the Miners'
Federation at the Swansea Trades Union Congress in 1928: "Talk about wrecking the
movement, I would rather have 50 honest men than 500 imitations; and if we have to disject
the movement to the very ground, I am prepared to do it." That is to say, the
reformist leadership is prepared "to disject the movement to the very ground,"
reducing the membership to one- tenth and expelling nine-tenths, rather than accept the
verdict of a revolutionary majority. This throws an important light on the Labour or
Social Democratic conception of "democracy," the principle of which is often
held forward as a reason for opposing the united front. Similarly, the Trades Union
Congress delegate to the American Federation of Labour in 1927, Sher-wood, of the General
and Municipal Workers, speaking at the Los Angeles Convention, said: Branches of our
organisation in London, over 15,000 strong, refused to comply with the instructions of our
General Council. Well, Mr. President, we simply smashed the branches. . . . We bad on our
General Council two men who represented great areas in our country, but they were going to
Minority meetings, and we said, "Sign a declaration or get out." Well, they had
to get out. The illustrations here drawn deliberately from British trade unionism, where
the process developed latest and most slowly, could be paralleled in very much stronger
form in the other European countries and in the United States. In Germany, in particular,
where the revolutionary movement was strongest, the Social Democratic policy of wrecking
the unions by wholesale expulsions to maintain control was carried to extreme lengths, and
played a large part in the disruption of the working class and opening the way to the
victory of Fascism. This is the parallel to the general policy of the refusal of the
united f ront. There remains the question whether Communism in Germany, as is sometimes
urged by critics, over-emphasised the policy of the "united front from below,"
that is, the appeal to the lower organisations, of Social Democracy and the trade unions
and to the organised and unorganised workers generally to combine in the single front
against Fascism, and only in the

THE ADAPTATION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY TO FASCISM 191.

last two years, since April 1932, and more especially since the expulsion of the
Braun-Severing Government in July 1932, developed alongside of this the policy of
"the united front from above," that is, the direct party-to-party appeal. The
criticism of this line is based on a lack of understanding of the conditions. The policy
of the united front from above, alongside the united front from below, has never been
ruled out in principle by the Communist International, and has been repeatedly applied,
when suitable occasion offered; but regard has had  to be taken to the conditions in
differing periods and situations. When Severing as Social Democratic Minister of the
Interior was shooting down the workers' May Day demonstrations in 1929, to have appealed
to the Social Democratic Party leadership for a united front against the attack on the
workers would have been worse than meaningless. So soon as the expulsion of the
BraunSevering Government by von Papen offered an occasion, the Communist Party immediately
made its proposal for a united front directly to the Executives of the Social Democratic
Party and of the General Trade Union Federation. The refusal of the united front by these
bodies sealed the victory of Fascism.

5. The Adaptation of Social Democracy to Fascism. As capitalism develops to more and
more Fascist forms, Social Democracy, which is the shadow of capitalism, necessarily goes
through a corresponding process of adaptation. This process of "fascisation" of
Social Democracy shows itself in the increasing support of open forms of dictatorship
(Bruning, Emergency Powers, Ordinance rule in India), the use of armed violence against
the workers, not only in civil war as in the early post-war years, but against unarmed
workers in conditions of peace (Berlin in 1929, India under the Second Labour Government),
and the increasing suppression of democracy within the working-class organisations. With
the complete victory of the Fascist dictatorship, this process of adaptation does not come
to an end, but on the contrary reaches even more extreme forms. Already since the war a
whole series of examples of direct alliance of Social Democracy with White Governments of
counter- revolutionary terror against the working class have shown themselves in country
after country, and have continued to-day into Fascist forms.

192. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

In Hungary under the White Terror Social Democracy entered into a written Treaty of
Alliance with the White Government. This Treaty was signed on December 22, 1921, between
the Prime Minister, Bethlen, and the Social Democratic Party, affiliated section of the
Second International. By the terms of this Treaty it was laid down that The Social
Democratic Party will consider the general interests of the nation as of equal importance
to the interests of the working class. In respect of foreign policy the Hungarian Social
Democratic Party will carry on an active propaganda on behalf of Hungary, among the
leaders of the foreign Social Democratic Parties, with the foreign governments, etc., and
for this purpose will co-operate with the Hungarian Foreign Ministry . . . will adopt the
Magyar standpoint . . . before all, in its organ Nepszava adopt an impartial attitude and
loyally express in this paper the collaboration with bourgeois society. In respect of home
policy the Social Democratic Party will "co- operate with the bourgeois classes in
the economic sphere," prevent strikes, conduct "no republican propaganda"
and "shall not extend its agitation among the agricultural workers." The Treaty
concluded with the pledge: The delegates of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party declare
 that they agree to the wishes expressed by the Prime Minister both with regard to
foreign and home policy, and give assurance of fulfilment on their part. They nominate on
their part a delegate who maintains contact with the Foreign Ministry. In return for this
Treaty, Social Democracy was to be officially protected by the White Government, while
Communism was ruthlessly suppressed. When the terms of this Treaty became known three
years later, and a scandal was raised, compelling even a Commission of Enquiry in the
Second International (the Commission of Enquiry, under Kautsky in 1925, ended in a
complete whitewashing verdict, recognising the "good faith" of the Hungarian
Social Democrats, and accepting their assurance that the Treaty would not be continued
further), the Hungarian semi-governmental organ, the Neues Pester Journal commented in its
issue of January 1, 1925: The Treaty does not contain anything which every Socialist Party
of the world-if we disregard the Third International-would

THE ADAPTATION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY TO FASCISM 193.

not have recognised, or at least realised by its practical attitude. . . . The Treaty
has been fully observed, and both parties have honestly fulfilled its provisions. The
bourgeois organ is correct. The Bethlen-Social Democratic Treaty is only peculiar in that
it sets down in writing the practice of all Labour and Social Democratic Parties, whatever
their formal programme. The underlying principles of Fascism and its "Labour
Front" are thus in many respects anticipated by Social Democracy. Bulgaria afforded a
further example of the same process. The elections of 1923 had resulted in a vote Of
437,000 for the militant Peasants' Party under Stambulisky, 252,000 for the Communist
Party, 2 19,000 for the Bourgeois Bloc, and 40,000 for the Social Democrats. The
Stambulisky Government was carrying through a programme of agrarian reforms, the
impeachment and trial of the former war- ministers, and other measures unpopular with the
reaction. The reactionary parties in June, 1923, carried through a military coup d'etat,
engineered by army officers, overthrew the Peasant Party's Government by force and
murdered the Prime Minister, Stambulisky. On this basis was set up the White Terror regime
of the butcher, Tsankov, under whom, according to the statement of Vandervelde, Chairman
of the Second International, 16,000 Bulgarian workers and peasants were murdered in
eighteen months (Humanite, May 18, 1925). In this Tsankov Government of White Terror the
Social Democratic Party, affiliated section of the Second International, was officially
represented; its Minister, Kasassov, sat alongside the representatives of the Fascist
"Officers' League" and of the bourgeois parties. In Poland in 1926 the Pilsudski
coup d'etat, overthrowing parliamentary democracy, and establishing a type of Fascist
dictatorship, was carried out with the support of the Polish Socialist Party, section of
the Second International; its representative, Moraszevski, sat in Pilsudski's Government.
In Spain the Primo de Rivera Dictatorship gave its protection to the Spanish Socialist
Party and the reformist General Union of Labour, while suppressing the revolutionary
workers' movement, and  even, while throwing the revolutionary leaders into prison,
appointed the reformist leader, Caballero, as a Privy Councillor.

194. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

In Italy D'Aragona and the reformist leaders of the General Confederation of Labour
entered into the service of Mussolini and declared the Confederation dissolved in 1926. In
Austria the Dollfuss dictatorship was built up step by step with the passive support of
Social Democracy as the "lesser evil" in relation to the Nazis; in the beginning
of 1934 the Social Democratic Party was making a direct offer of alliance to Dollfuss at
the same time as the Government offensive was turning on its organisations, and Press; and
even when the workers finally rose in their heroic struggle, it was against express orders
of the Party, which on the very eve of the struggle was sending urgent messages for
submission and expressing readiness to Dollfuss to accept an emergency dictatorship and a
form of Corporate State. In Czecho-Slovakia the Social Democratic Party participated in
the Coalition Government of all the bourgeois parties, which in 1933 was suppressing the
Communist Press and preparing the conditions of intensified dictatorship. In Japan the
following situation was complacently reported in the British Labour organ Forward on March
20, 1930, under the title "Labour in Japan," with reference to the elections:
One's impression is that the proletarian parties have been given a much fairer field than
before. It is true that since the last election there have been two great police round-ups
of the so-called dangerous thinkers. This might be urged to have had a weakening effect,
but the opposite is more probably the case. Those that remain have been given as it were
an official cachet. By inference they are certified free from Communism. There is no
longer that bogy to frighten away possible supporters. The "official cachet" to
Social Democracy from an extreme reactionary militarist Government, which is savagely
suppressing Communism with tens of thousands of arrests, is regarded with high favour by
the British Labour organ as a most fortunate advantage. A short time after, in the spring
of 1932, the leadership of this Japanese Social Democratic Party, headed by the Secretary,
Akamatsu, and half the Executive Committee openly moved over and transformed themselves
into an avowedly Fascist "National Socialist Party." Social Democracy has thus
throughout the world shown itself ready to adapt itself and enter into alliance with every
counterrevolutionary, White Terrorist and Fascist Government, even

THE ADAPTATION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY TO FASCISM 195. entering directly into such
Governments. Where Social Democracy has not been accepted into such open alliance, but has
been forced under the carrying out its role of disruption of the working class under the
form of opposition, this has not been for lack of trying on the part of the Social
Democratic leadership, who have invariably exhausted every manoeuvre to endeavour to be
admitted to the favoured circle under the protection of Fascism.  The signal example
of the latter process has been Germany. The significance of the German experience has been
dealt with in the previous chapter. If German Fascism rejected the offers and pleadings of
Social Democracy for an open alliance, it was because German Fascism had no confidence in
the existence of any form of workers' Organisation, however servile the leadership, save
under its direct control, because it had no confidence in the power of a permitted Social
Democracy to maintain control of the workers, because it was determined to hold all
apparatus positions for itself and permit no other forms of organization. The role of the
remnants of Social Democracy thus becomes in practice, under the completed Fascist
dictatorship, to continue its disruption of the working-class front in new forms, to carry
forward its fight against the united front and against Communism, to confuse the
revolutionary struggle with the deceitful aim of Weimar democracy which made possible the
victory of Fascism, and to stand ready, in the event of the weakening of the Fascist
dictatorship and the advance of the working-class offensive, to come to the rescue of
capitalism and save the capitalist State, as in 1918, against the working-class
revolution. In this way Social Democracy remains, even under the completed Fascist
dictatorship, the main basis of support of the bourgeoisie in the working class. The
collapse of German Social Democracy created a crisis in the Second International. Numbers
of workers who bad followed its leadership began to have their eyes opened to the
realities of the struggle, and to move towards increasing sympathy with Communism and
towards the line of the united front. But the effect of the crisis on the leading strata
was to hasten the process of "fascisation." The slogan was given out to rally on
the basis of "democracy," that is, on the basis of the existing capitalist
State. Therefore the line was proclaimed

196. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

to combat still more fiercely the united working-class front, to strengthen the
authority of the State, if necessary, in "emergency" forms, to unite with the
"moderate" elements of the bourgeoisie, forming left blocs and coalition
governments to save the State, and even to support the war-propaganda of the bourgeoisie
in the name of "democracy." The Left Cartel policy in France, the toleration of
Dollfuss in Austria, the coalition policy in Czecho-Slovakia, the support of Roosevelt by
the reformist leadership in Britain and America, illustrated this line. An increasingly
influential school developed which openly drew the "lessons" of Fascism as the
need to concentrate more on a "national," as opposed to an international, basis,
to abandon the conception of the working-class conquest of power and direct the appeal
increasingly to the petit-bourgeoisie, and to seek to build a "strong, authoritarian
State" in the conditions of crisis. These conceptions were openly expressed by
"Neo-Socialism" in France. A variant of a similar tendency was revealed by the
Socialist League wing of the Labour Party leadership, which also came forward with
proposals for an intensified dictatorship within the capitalist State. It is evident that
this whole line of propaganda in practice chimes in with and assists the increasing
development of capitalism in all modern  states towards fascist forms. Social
Democracy-modern post-1914 Social Democracytakes its starting-point and origin in the
conception of co-operation with capitalism and with the capitalist State. This line is
presented as the line of safe and peaceful, harmonious, "democratic" advance
towards Socialism, as opposed to the dangers and destruction of the path of violent
revolution. The whole experience of 1914-1933 has demonstrated with inescapable clearness
that this line leads, not to Socialism, nor to peaceful progress, nor even to the
maintenance of democratic forms in the most limited sense, but to unexampled violence
against the, working class and strengthening of the capitalist dictatorship and, in the
final culmination, to the victory of Fascism, of imperialist war and of all the forces of
destruction, against which only the proletarian revolution can avail to save the world.
This is the lesson of the episode of "Social Democracy" (correctly, Social
Imperialism or Social Fascism) in working-class history, an episode which is beginning to
draw to its close.

ON a superficial view the theory and practice of Fascism might appear to resemble
closely Gibbon's famous definition of the theory and practice of the mediaeval Catholic
Church"defending nonsense by violence." But in fact, as there has already been
occasion to emphasise, there is a highly rational method in the nonsense, no less than in
the violence. Behind the ranting megalomaniacs, bullies, drug- fiends and brokendown
bohemians who constitute the outer facade of Fascism, the business heads of
finance-capital who pay the costs and pull the strings are perfectly cool, clear and
intelligent. And it is with the real system of Fascism in this sense, rather than with the
imaginary ideology created to gull the innocent, that we are here concerned. The second,
the professed fantastic ideology, is only of importance in relation to the first, the real
working system for the maintenance of capitalism in conditions of extreme crisis and
weakening.

I. Is There a "Theory" of Fascism? The first illusion that requires to be
cleared out of the way is the illusion that there is a "theory" of Fascism, in
the same sense that there is a theory of Liberalism, Conservatism, Communism, etc. Many
intellectuals, while "deploring" the "excesses" of Fascism, allow
themselves to be fascinated and drawn into elaborate speculative discussion of the
"philosophy" of Fascism-and are soon lost in the Serbonian bog of alternating
"socialism," capitalism, corporatism, strong-man worship,high moral adjurations,
and platitudes, anti-alien agitation, appeals to "unity," glorifications of war,
torture-gloating, deification of primitive man, denunciations of big business, idolisation
of captains of industry, kicking of the dead corpse of the nineteenth century and
"liberal-democratic humanitarian superstitions," exhumation of the considerably
more putrescent 

198. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

corpses of mercantilism, absolutism, inquisitorial methods and caste- conceptions,
racial theories of the inferiority of all other human beings save the speaker's own tribe,
anti-Semitism, Nordicism and all the rest of it. The innocent may solemnly and
painstakingly discuss at face value these miscellaneous "theories" provided to
suit all tastes. But in fact their importance is rather as symptoms and byproducts of the
real system and basis of Fascism than as its origin and raison d'etre. The reality of
Fascism is the violent attempt of decaying capitalism to defeat the proletarian revolution
and forcibly arrest the growing contradictions of its whole development. All the rest is
decoration and stage-play, whether conscious or unconscious, to cover and make presentable
or attractive this basic reactionary aim, which cannot be openly stated without defeating
its purpose. For this reason the real scientific theory underlying Fascism can better be
studied in such a document as the Deutsche Fuhrerbrief e or confidential bulletins of the
Federation of German Industries, already quoted in the previous chapter (PP. 1701174),
rather than in the propaganda statements for public consumption concerning its professed
"theories" by the Fascist leaders themselves. The confidential statement of the
heads of finance-capital defines plainly and without disguise the objective essence and
purpose of Fascism as seen by its actual paymasters and controllers, and is therefore of
primary scientific and theoretical importance for the real understanding of Fascism. Such
a statement makes plain that Fascism is solely a tactical method of finance-capital-in
exactly the same way as the support of democratic forms and of Social Democratic
Governments was also a tactical method, either being supported with equal readiness
according to circumstances-to defeat the proletarian revolution, to divide the exploited
population, and so to maintain capitalist rule. All the propaganda "theories,"
mythological trimmings, supposed "new school of political thought'' etc., only
constitute a smokescreen to cover this aim. We have already seen, in the course of the
enquiry "what is Fascism?" in the fourth chapter, how empty and meaningless are
all the infinite attempted definitions of Fascism by its leading exponents. The more these
definitions are examined and analysed, the more they resolve themselves into a string of
commonplaces and platitudes by no means peculiar to

IS THERE A "THEORY" OF FASCISM? 199.

Fascism, "the common interest before self" (basis of the German National
Socialist Programme); "duty," "heroism," "the conception of the
State as an absolute" (Mussolini); "an organic and historical conception of
society" (Rocco); "a conception which leans neither to the Right nor to the
Left," "the co-operation of all classes," "the co- ordinated
development of all national resources for the common good" (Villari); "a high
conception of citizenship," "the Modern  Movement," "the faith
of those who ever since the war have realised that the old system was dead and that a new
system must be created," "the system of the next stage of civilisation,"
"the creed and morality of British manhood" (Mosley); "orderly government,
national discipline," "co-ordinated progress," "a creed of justice and
Solidarity ... .. Social Christianity" (The Blackshirt); "a return to
statesmanship," "the national observance of duty towards others,"
"less a policy than a state of mind" (The Fascist), etc., etc. These and the
like windfilled phrases revolve without end through all the propagandist explanations of
Fascism. There is, it is true, one professedly definite and specific content put forward,
namely, the much advertised "Corporate State"; but further analysis in a
subsequent section will show that this conception is actually as empty and hollow as the
rest. This vagueness and ambiguity of conventional commonplaces to describe its basic aims
is not accidental in Fascism, but inherent and inevitable. This terminology is the
standard vague and deceitful terminology of all capitalist parties to cover the realities
of class- rule and class-exploitation under empty phrases of "the community,"
"the national welfare," "the State above classes," etc. It is the
familiar terminology of a MacDonald, a Henderson or of Fabianism. in the Labour movement
to defeat the aims of Socialism and cover servitude to capitalism. It is the familiar
terminology of a Baldwin or a Lloyd George, of a Tardieu or a Herriot, of a Hindenburg or
a Wels, In the use of these threadbare cliches of capitalist politics to describe its aims
Fascism differs not a whit from the other capitalist parties, from Conservatism,
Liberalism or Labourism, all of which would readily accept all the formulas quoted above.
By this identity Fascism not only reveals its theoretical poverty and emptiness, but also
reveals its basic identity of aims with the other capitalist parties. Fascism differs from
the other

200. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

capitalist parties only in its particular methods, in its practice, to realise the same
basic aims. There is, in short, despite all the inflated claims and attempts to the
contrary, no distinctive "theory" of Fascism in the sense of a distinctive,
scientific system of doctrines and worldoutlook. There is only a practice: and, to cover
this practice, a medley of borrowed plumes of any and every theory, principle or
institution which may serve the purpose of the moment, often with the utmost consequent
theoretical contradiction (e.g., in racial theories) between one Fascism and another. To
mistake the borrowed plumage for the bird means to fail to understand the essence of
Fascism. Or , to vary the metaphor, the warning may be addressed to those who seek in all
innocence to study the highly "ideal" and "spiritual" explanations of
the "theoretical basis" of Fascism, that to mistake the sheep's hide for the
wolf means to reveal oneself in truth a sheep and fit prey for the wolf. Fascism grew up
in historical fact as a movement without a theory- that is to say, it grew up in reality
as a negative movement (employing mixed national-chauvinist and pseudorevolutionary
slogans) in opposition to the proletarian revolution, and mainly distinguished by the use
of violent and extralegal methods against the proletarian movement. Only later, after over
two years of existence, when it  became clear that in order to appear fully dressed
and equipped as a party and movement, it required to have a "philosophy," in 192
1 the Fascist leadership gave orders for a suitable "philosophy" to be created.
In August 1921, in preparation f or the 1921 Congress Mussolini wrote: Italian Fascism now
requires, under pain of death, or worse, of suicide, to provide itself with a "body
of doctrines .... . . The expression is a rather strong one, but I would desire that
within the two months between now and the National Congress the philosophy of Fascism must
be created(Mussolini, letter to Bianchi, August 27, 1921, reprinted in Message et
Proclami, Milan, 1929, P. 39.)

"Within two months the philosophy of Fascism must be created." The new
"philosophy" is ordered as simply as a waggon-load of blacksticks. The spirit of
this is no doubt magnificent in the style of a Selfridge's or Whiteley's emporium, ready
to provide anything at a moment's notice, including even

IS THERE A "THEORY OF FASCISM? 201.

a brand-new "philosophy" is desired. But it is not the spirit of a genuine or
serious movement with roots. In the same way we may note Hitler's explanation that a new
"world-theory" was necessary as the sole means to combat the world- theory of
Marxism. Every attempt to combat a world-theory by means of force comes to grief in the
end, so long as the struggle fails to take the form of aggression in favour of a new
intellectual conception. It is only when two world-theories are wrestling on equal terms
that brute force, persistent and ruthless, can bring about a decision by arms in favour of
the side which it supports. It was on this side that the fight against Marxism had failed
up to that time. It was the reason why Bismarck's legislation regarding Socialism failed
in the end in spite of everything, and was bound to fail. It lacked the platform of a new
world-theory to establish which the fight might have been fought; for only the proverbial
wisdom of high State officials could find it possible to imagine that the twaddle about
so-called "State authority" or "order and tranquillity" are a
sufficient inducement to fight to the death. In 1914 a contest against Social Democracy
was in fact conceivable, but the lack of any practical substitute made it doubtful how
long such a contest could have been maintained successfully. In that respect there was a
serious blank. (Hitler, Mein Kampf, English translation, PP. 78-9.) Hitler, or the writer
of this passage, is here perfectly correct in placing his finger on the weakness of the
fight against Marxism. But his correctness is the correctness of a cunning tactician, not
of a world thinker or historical leader. Marxism is strong and invincible because of its
world-theory; therefore we must also create a world- theory in order to defeat it: such is
the reasoning. Once again only the negative approach to Marxism dictates the ideology and
the demand for it; Marxism remains the sole positive, dominating force. It is 
obvious that no world-theory comes into existence in this fashion, but only a substitute
for one. The sensation of a "new ideology" which intoxicates the more fanatical
and emotional adherents of Fascism, giving them the illusion of a liberation from old
superstitions and a new dynamic power, represents in reality no new ideology distinct from
the general ideology of capitalism, but only the typical ideology of the most modern phase
of capitalism, that is to say, the sharpened expression of all the tendencies of
imperialism or capitalism in decay, in the period of the general crisis. The

202 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

contempt for constitutional and legalist forms, the glorification of violence, the
denial of all liberal, egalitarian and humanitarian ideas, the demand for the strong and
powerful state, the enthronement of war as the highest form of human activity-all these
are the typical expressions of modern monopolist capitalism. They are not peculiar to
Fascism; they are only expressed with greater brutality by Fascism. In the poems of a
Kipling, in the Boer War agitation of a Daily Mail in the war dictatorship of a Lloyd
George riding roughshod over constitutional forms and driving to the aim of a
"Knock-out Blow," the spirit of Fascism is already present in embryonic f orms.
And indeed Fascism grew historically out of war agitation, and under the guiding
inspiration of the Army authorities, in both Italy and Germany. There is nothing original
or creative in Fascism. -Not one single creative idea or achievement can be traced to
Fascism. The critique of liberalism and of liberal capitalist democracy, with its hollow
contradiction between the formal sovereign "citizenship" and the reality of
wage-slavery is borrowed from Marx. But Marx's conclusion, which alone justifies the
criticism by pointing the path forward to the stage when the abolition of classes will
make the formal citizenship real, is omitted; for in Fascism the hollow contradiction
between the formal "citizenship" and the reality of wageslavery remains, just as
in Liberalism, save with heavier coercion and subjection to maintain it. The
pseudo-revolutionary trappings, the sham staged "conquest of power," the new
form of government based on a single party running throughout the entire population, is
'twisted, with servile imitation, from a caricature of the Russian Revolution, turned
upside down. But even the caricature cannot be reproduced in the end; for, while the idea
of a single party leadership is borrowed (but of an autocratic, not a democratic party),
the key of the system, the Soviets or drawing of the masses directly into the work of
government through their own elected organs from below, cannot be copied even in
caricature: on the contrary, even the previously elected municipal councils have to be
abolished and replaced by the arbitrary rule of the nominated Podesta or Prefect, or in
Germany by the nominated State Commissary imposed from above and overruling even nominal
elected forms.

IS THERE A "THEORY" OF FASCISM? 203  The theory of economic state
regulation of privately owned industry and of class-collaboration in the "Corporate
State," that is, of syndicated state-controlled capitalism with a dash of sham
"labour representation," is borrowed from the entire modern development of
monopolist capitalism in all countries. In particular, these are the typical theories of
modern Liberalism and Social Democracy, with their "Organised Capitalism,"
"National Planning Boards," "National Economic Councils," "Joint
Industrial Councils," and all the rest of the apparatus of theories and institutions
which have developed continuously and increasingly in the imperialist era, and more
especially since the war, before Fascism ever existed. Save for the peculiar coercive
methods of Fascism, all the essential formal theories of the "Corporate State"
can be found exactly paralleled in the Liberal Yellow Book. Finally, the
national-chauvinist ideology, the anti-Semitism and the racial theories are all borrowed,
without a single new feature, from the stock in trade of the old Conservative and
reactionary parties, as utilised by a Bismarck or Tsar Nicholas, and made familiar in the
propaganda of the Pan-Germans or Pan-Slavists.* *Modern Anti-Semitism developed from
Germany and Austria in the eighteenseventies, that is, as capitalism was beginning to pass
from the liberal epoch towards the imperialist epoch. In 1873 appeared Marr's Der Sieg des
Judentums uber das Germanum, or, The Victory of Jewry over Germanism. "It is
impossible to doubt," writes Lucien Wolf, former President of the Jewish Historical
Society in England, "that the secret springs of the new agitation were more or less
directly supplied by Prince Bismarck himself." It is worth noting that a
"Christian Social Working Alen's Union"(worthy forerunner of the National
Socialist Workers' Party) was founded in this period by Stocker, a Court Chaplain, which
preached a programme of so-called "Christian Socialism," in practice
Anti-Semitism, dished up with denunciations of financial corruption, and organised street
riots and bloodshed. It was with reference to this movement that the elder Liebknecht
spoke of Anti-Semitism as the "Socialism of Fools." The Anti-Semite agitation
spread from Germany to Russia in the beginning of the 'eighties, again directly inspired
and stimulated from above. "The modern Anti-Semitic element," writes Lucien
Wolf, "came from above. It has been freely charged against the Russian Government
that it promoted the riots in 1881 in order to distract attention from the Nihilist
propaganda. This seems to be true of General Ignatiev, then Minister of the Interior, and
of the secret police." The conscious anti-revvolutionary, antisocialist an officially
inspired character of the movement thus stands out in every case. In France, Drumont's La
France Juive appeared in 1886, and the antiDreyfus scandal, promoted by all the high
military and bureaucratic authorities with wholesale forgeries, dragged from 1894 to 1906.
Only British Capitalism, which in its period of stability could make a Conservative Jew
Prime Minister and ennoble Jewish millionaires in abundance, had for long no use for the
primitive devices of Anti-Semite demagogy; but to-day the signs begin to spread in Britain
in close association with the spread of Fascism. Thus The Blackshirt (1933, No.

204 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The whole outlook and ideology of Fascism is in short nothing but a ragbag of
borrowings from every source to cover the realities and practice of modern monopolist
capitalism in the period of crisis and of extreme class-war. There is not a single
creative idea. Capitalism in its time, in its early progressive days achieved a great
constructive work, and carried enormously forward the whole of human culture in every
field. The French Revolution spread a new life and a new understanding throughout the
world, the outcome of which we can to- day be proud to inherit, even though we are to-day
able to understand that its bourgeois basis inevitably set a limit to what it could
achieve. The Russian Revolution opened a new era on a scale exceeding every previous
change in human history, the full extent of which is still only beginning to be realised.
But Fascism has produced nothing, and can produce nothing. For Fascism is the expression
only of disease and death. 2. Demagogy as a Science. Bolshevism is knocking at our gates.
We can't afford to let it in. We have got to organize ourselves against it, and put our
shoulders together and hold fast. We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled. We
must keep the worker away from red literature and red ruses; we must see that his mind
remains healthy. (Al Capone.) The above quotation from Al Capone is a suitable
introduction to the anti-Communist ideology of Fascism. The earnestness of this appeal of
a thief and gangster to maintain existing society "unspoiled" in face of the
Communist menace might appear at first blush comic; but in fact it is purely reasonable.
None have more sincere concern and zeal than thieves to maintain the institution of
private property, without which their profession would come to an end, and they would find
themselves faced with the unpleasant alternative of having to work for their living. On
the other hand, they cannot publicly proclaim the principles of thievery and gangsterism
as the basis of their stand; for public purposes, they have to pro 23) prints on its front
page under the heading "Britain for the British: The Alien Menace": "The
low type of foreign Jew, together with other aliens who are debasing the life of this
nation, will be run out of the country in double-quick time under Fascism."
Anti-Sernitism, the typical degrading expression of a tottering system, is developed by
Capitalism in its decaying stage in proportion as the class struggle grows acute.

DEMAGOGY AS A SCIENCE 205

claim the most high moral principles, to maintain existing society
"unspoiled" and to keep "the mind" of the worker "healthy."
This high moral tone runs through all Fascist propaganda and accompanies their gangster
exploits. Nor should this be thought a contradiction; the two characteristics invariably
run together in periods of decay. As Plechanov has remarked: Marx said very truly that the
greater the development of antagonism between the growing forces of production and the
extant social order, the more does the ideology of the ruling class become permeated with
hypocrisy. In addition, the more effectively life unveils the mendacious character of this
ideology, the more does the language used by the dominant class become sublime and
virtuous (see Saint Max). This shrewd remark is confirmed by what is going on to-day in
Germany. The spread of debauchery disclosed by the Harden-Moltke trial proceeds hand
in hand with the "revival of idealism" in s(Plechanov, Fundamental Problems of
Marxism, English edition, 1929, p. 82.) The process noted by Plechanov has gone
considerably further in Germany and in all capitalist Society to-day. The fact that many
of the principal leaders of German Fascism are not only notorious drug- fiends and
perverts, but express themselves in their writings with highly jocular gusto over their
exploits of tortures of women and particularly revolting murders (see for example the
Ernstes und Heiteres aus dem Putschleben of von Killinger, who was appointed by Hitler
Commissar for Saxony and Minister-President), while in their programme they demand the
protection of "the morals and sense of decency of the German race," is no
contradiction, but only a further exemplification of the general rule.* *"Von
Killinger was made Commissar for Saxony and later MinisterPresident, and he consequently
was in charge of 'Gleichschaltung' in this State. Ile had previously written a little
book, Ernstes und Heiteres aus dem Putschleben, in which he recounts, among other
incidents, how in the campaign against the Soviet Government in Munich he had a soldier
whip a young 'wench' with a horsewhip 'until there was not a white spot left on her
backside.' He also recounts how, after a Communist street agitator had made an impudent
reply to a threat, he had a soldier toss a hand grenade at the man. He recounts with gusto
the Iorv details of the man's death" (Calvin B. Hoover, Germany Enters tile Third
Reich, 1933, P. 113). Leaders of this type have invariably been given especially high
position in German Fascism. Many similar exploits could be recounted of the notorious
"Rasses" of Mussolini in Italy, of Finnish Fascism, of Hungarian Fascism, etc.
This charateristic is a general characteristic of Fascism, and follows inevitably from the
type of work it has to do.

206 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The mystical and openly non-rational character of Fascist ideology and propaganda is
only the inevitable expression of its class- role to maintain the domination of a doomed
and decaying class. The present situation of world capitalism is in the highest degree
irrational. It is not rational that foodstuffs should be destroyed, while millions are
undernourished, that building workers should be unemployed, while housing becomes more and
more overcrowded and inadequate; that the masses should have to economise and go short,
because there is too much plenty; or that learned economists should discuss anxiously the
"menace" of a good harvest or the "hopes" of a bad harvest. But all
this is inherent in the present stage of capitalism. Therefore capitalism can no longer
defend itself on rational grounds, as it used to do in its early days, when it argued that
its system, though cruel, meant the maximum development of natural resources and the
maximum material well-being. To-day such arguments are dimissed as low, materialistic,
utilitarian, merely rational arguments unworthy of higher human nature, characteristic of
the exploded nineteenth-century outlook and long replaced by twentieth-century
"spirituality" and the "revival of idealism." To-day capitalism
defends itself on mystical grounds. "Race," "the nation,"
"Christianity," "spirituality," "the mystery of patriotism,"
"faith"-this is the language of the modern defenders of capitalism, and,
in particular, of Fascism. Thus Mussolini, in defining Fascism, speaks with contempt of
"doctrine" and exalts "faith": Doctrine, beautifully defined and
carefully elucidated, with headlines and paragraphs, might be lacking; but there was to
take its place something more decisive-faith. (Mussolini, The Political and Social
Doctrine oj Fascism, p. 10.) Gentile, the philosopher of Fascism, defines the Fascist
State as "a wholly spiritual creation." Hitler defines the State as
"nothing to do with any definite economic conception or economic development,"
but the organisation of a community homogeneous in nature and feeling, for the better
furtherance and maintenance of their type and the fulfilment of the destiny marked out for
them by Providence. (Hitler, Mein Kampf, English edition, p. 69.) The British Union of
Fascists, in its short definition of Fascism, declares:

DEMAGOGY AS A SCIENCE 207

We believe in the co-operation of all classes, in the solidarity of all units of a
nation, and in justice. And in the mystery of patriotism. (The Blackshirt, No. 34, 1933.)
Bottomley in his wartime speeches and articles had many similar exalted passages. This
type of "ideal" "spiritual" language is the familiar language of all
scoundrels, rogues, war-profiteers, gangsters, Kreugers, Al Capones, Morgans, MacDonalds,
Mussolinis, Hiders, Romanoffs and all who live by preying on their fellow human beings and
cannot face a plain, rational, materialist examination of their role and of the
Organisation of society. On this exaltation of mystical "feeling" above
reasonwhether national "feeling," religious "feeling," racial
"feeling," etc.-as the ultimate basis, Hegel (himself philosophically an
idealist, but of a more solid type, and therefore by his system laying the groundwork for
the subsequent dialectical materialism), wrote with incisive contempt in Phenomenology of
Mind: By referring to his feelings, his inward oracle, he thinks he has a sufficient
answer to those who do not agree with him; he must declare that be has nothing more to say
to those who do not share the same feelings----in other words, be tramples under foot the
roots of humanity. For the nature of this is to seek agreement with others, and it exists
only in the community of consciousness that has been brought about. The inhuman, the brute
consists in being guided only by feeling and being able to communicate only through
feelings. "He tramples under foot the roots of humanity"-this pregnant saying
applies to all the racial, mystical, non-rational, anti-humanitarian, anti- international
ideologies of Fascism. And the result in every case is the same-to lead only to "the
inhuman, the brute." The truth is, the propaganda of Fascism is essentially demagogy
carried to its most extreme point of development. It might indeed be said that, if Marxism
represented the development of Socialism from Utopia to science, Fascism represents the
development of capitalist demagogy from amateurdorn to science. Already before Fascism the
precursors of the modern age, Northcliffe, Lloyd George, Bottomley, Hearst and
others had done much to point the way and lay down the general lines and methods; but
these were still erratic and individualist in character, and never solved completely the
complicated and contradictory problem of building up a reactionary mass movement,

208 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

at once "popular" in form and anti-popular in content. Hitler expresses
generously his gratitude to his predecessors, especially Northcliffe, Lloyd George and
British wartime propaganda, which he acknowledges as his model that he learnt from,
admiring its "psychological superiority"; he admires particularly the idea of
pretending to fight for "the freedom of little nations" as a far superior motive
to "lead men to their death" rather than telling them the real aims of the war;
he praises Lloyd George highly as a "great demagogue," whose
"primitiveness" is "proof of towering political capacity." But in fact
Fascism was to leave these models far behind in its systematisation of playing on every
backward feeling, instinct and ignorance in the population, in the unscrupulousness of its
programmes thrown out to appeal to any and every section without pretense of regard for
consistency, and in the brazenness of its sudden changes of front and repudiation of its
own programmes. What is demagogy? The ruling classes will apply the epithet
"demagogue" to every revolutionary leader of the masses who awakens them to the
struggle to overthrow their oppressors, as realised at its highest in a Lenin or a
Liebknecht. Such appellation is a glaring misuse of language; for the relation of the
revolutionary leader to the masses is based on the strictest regard for objective truth,
whether popular or unpopular, and the most consistent and unwavering prosecution of the
interests of the mass struggle for liberation against all opposition, however powerful.
Demagogy, on the other hand, is the art of playing on the hopes and the fears, the
emotions and the ignorance of the poor and the suffering for the benefit of the rich and
the powerful. It is the meanest of the arts. This is the art of Fascism. An examination of
the programmes of Italian and of German Fascism will show the systernatisation of this
method, which is being painstakingly copied to-day by British Fascism. It is unnecessary
to go into the earlier record of Mussolini himself, as when in 1910 be declared that
"the proletariat has no fatherland, nor in truth has the bourgeoisie; in case of war
we Socialists will not go to the front-we will raise insurrection within our own
borders," or when in 1012 he denounced Bissolati for treason in having acclaimed the
King whose servitor he was himself to become. This is only the common

DEMAGOGY AS A SCIENCE 209

record of all the Corrupt Western European Social Democratic politicians, of the
Millerands and Briands, of the MacDonalds and Snowdens. It is more important to begin with
the early programme of Italian Fascism in 1019-22 before power. The early programme of
Italian Fascism was, in the words of an official spokesman of Fascism, Professor G. Volpe
(Professor of Modern History in the University of Milan), in the Yearbook of the
International Centre of Fascist Studies for 192 8, "a nebulous programme at first . .
. somewhat demagogic and revolutionary." It contained items of the following type:
Abolition of the Monarchy, Senate and Nobility. Republic, and Universal Suffrage to elect
a Constituent Assembly as Italian Section of the International Constituent Assembly of the
Peoples. International Disarmament and Abolition of Compulsory Military Service,
Confiscation of Church property. Confiscation of war super-profits, and capital levy;
abolition of the Stock Exchange and dissolution of limited liability Companies and banks;
Land for the peasants. Transference of control of industry to syndicates of technicians
and workers. Italian Fascism systematically applauded the occupation of factories by
workers, food-riots, strikes, peasant land-seizures, etc. and called for the hanging of
speculators from lamp-posts and similar measures. It is only necessary to examine this
programme of Fascism in comparison with its record in power to understand the meaning of
demagogy. In comparison with Fascism, the average "old gang politician's'' record of
election promises and subsequent violation is innocent child's play and almost honest by
contrast. Political history in all its range from a Machiavelli to a Tammany Hall knows no
parallel of brazen dishonesty to equal Fascism.* * The examples of this record in every
field are too abundant and commonplace to be worth detailed review. Thus on the question
of Republicanism Mussolini wrote in the Popolo d'Italia on May 2 4, 19 2 1:

"I shall not allow Fascism to be altered and made unrecognizable by changing from
republican in tendency, as I founded it, and as it ought to remain, to a monarchical, nay
more, a dynastic movement. Our symbol is not the scutcheon of the House of Savoy.... It is
not permissible to preach one thing and practise another." On the very next day, when
the controlling capitalist and landed elements in

210 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The programme of German National Socialism surpassed that of Italian Fascism in
unblushing demagogy. Here, in the more advanced stage of development of Germany, it was
necessary for Fascism to proclaim the aim of "Socialism." The Krupps and the
Thyssens, the Deterdings and the Hohenzollerns paid out their money to spread the
propaganda of "Socialism." The Twenty-Five Points Programme, adopted in 1920,
and proclaimed by the 1926 Congress to be "unalterable," set out the following
aims among its miscellaneous medley of items: Abolition of Unearned Income (11). Breaking
of Interest- Slavery (11). Confiscation of all war profits (12). Nationalisation of all
trusts (13). Profit-sharing in large concerns (14). Confiscation without
compensation of land for communal purposes (17). Death penalty for usurers and profiteers
(17). The meaning of these high-sounding "revolutionary" and
"socialistic" aims was left deliberately obscure. It is reported that two
earnest students and devotees of National Socialism having approached Goebbels for an
explanation how the famous Eleventh Point on the "Breaking of Interest-Slavery"
would be accomplished received the reply that the only "breaking" likely to take
place would be of the heads of those who tried to understand it. Interpretation" was,
however, at a later stage brought into play in reference to one point, the Seventeenth
Point on the confiscation of land without compensation. This demand had Fascism insisted
on the withdrawal of this republican declaration, Mussolini at once obediently wrote
(Popolo d'Italia, May 2 1, 1921): "Fascism is superior to monarchy and republic....
The future is uncertain, and the absolute does not exist. . . . Those who would draw the
conclusion that Fascism espouses the republican cause, and regards the setting up of the
republic as a prime necessity, reveal a lamentable want of understanding." On the
question of religion Mussolini wrote on April 3, 1921: "Fascism is the strongest of
all heresies that strikes at the doors of the churches.Away with these temples that are
doomed to destruction; for our triumphant heresy is destined to illumine all hearts and
brains." in his Encyclopedia article on Fascism in 1932 he wrote: "In the
Fascist State religion is considered as one of the deepest manifestations of the spirit of
man, thus it is not only respected, but defended and protected." These examples could
be continued indefinitely, and are only of importance as the demonstration that Fascism
cannot be interpreted in terms of its own alleged political "theories," but only
in terms of its service to finance- capital.

DEMAGOGY AS A SCIENCE 211

evidently caused alarm to the more stupid large landlords, who required an assurance in
writing, while the more wily heads of big business and finance remained wholly unperturbed
at the terrible Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads in the shape of the
"Nationalisation of All Trusts," "Abolition of Unearned Income" and
the "Death Penalty for Profiteers." Accordingly, the following explanatory
addition was officially inserted in the "unalterable" programme in 1928: It is
necessary to reply to the false interpretation on the part of our opponents on Point 17 of
the programme. Since the National Socialist German Workers' Party admits the principle of
private property, it is obvious that the expression "confiscation without
compensation" merely refers to possible legal powers to confiscate, if necessary,
land illegally acquired or not administered in accordance with national welfare. It is
directed in the first instance at the Jewish companies which speculate in land. This
specimen exercise in official "interpretation" speaks volumes for the real
character of the whole programme. At the same time, occasional assurances bad in fact also
to be given to some of the more hesitating capitalists. An official letter of this
type from the district party leadership in Dresden to a Weimar capitalist, who had
hesitated to give financial support owing to the "anti-capitalist" propaganda
conducted, and to whom it was officially explained that he should not be alarmed at the
anti-capitalist "catchwords," since these were only adopted "for reasons of
diplomacy," fell into the bands of the opponents of the Nazis in 1930 and was
published. The text of this indiscreet letter ran: Do not let yourself be continually
confused by the text of our posters. Of course there are catchwords like "Down with
Capitalism!" etc.; but these are unquestionably necessary, for under the flag of
"German national," or "national" alone, you must know, we should never
reach our goal, we should have no future. We must talk the language of the embittered
socialist workmen . . . or else they wouldn't feel at home with us. We don't come out with
a direct programme for reasons of diplomacy. (Letter of Dresden party leader to the
industrialist, Fritsche, in Weimar: reprinted in Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock Back, p.
150.) This illuminating letter makes further comment on the real meaning of Fascist
"demagogy" and its purpose superfluous.

212 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

3. Capitalism, Socialism and the Corporate State. Fascism differs from Socialism
chiefly in this-that in the Corporate State you will be left in possession of your
business. ("Fascism Callingto the Industrialists and Business Men," The Fascist
Week, January 19-25, 1934.) Fascism endeavours to present itself as a third alternative
distinct from either Capitalism or Socialism. To the workers Fascism insists that it does
not stand for Capitalism. To the employers Fascism insists that it does not stand for
Socialism. For its supposed distinct positive conception it remains extremely vague. Only
after several years of existence Italian Fascism worked out the formula of the
"Corporate State" to cover its aim. German Fascism worked out the formula of
"National Socialism." Both these formulas are intended to represent the supposed
"third alternative" to Capitalism or Socialism. This supposed "third
alternative"-the will o' the wisp dream of petit- bourgeois ideology ever since the
development of Capitalism and the class struggle-remains a myth and can never be other
than a myth. It is in fact nothing but a repetition of the old petit-bourgeois dream of a
class-society without class-contradictions or class-struggle, but this time used to cover
in reality the most violently coercive class-state and classsuppression. The
"Corporate State" is in fact the transparent masquerade-dress of modern
Capitalism, with developed state Organisation of industry, and complete suppression of all
independent workers' Organisation and rights. Economically, there can only be Capitalism
or Socialism in the conditions of modern society based on large-scale industry. What is
Capitalism? Capitalism is marked by (I) production for profit, (2) class ownership of the
means of production, (3) employment of the dispossessed workers or proletariat for wages.
What is Socialism? Socialism is marked by (I) common ownership of the means of
production by the workers, constituting the entire society, (2 ) production for use. The
current fashionable vulgar talk of all bourgeois journalists and politicians about
"the disappearance nowadays of the line of distinction between Capitalism and
Socialism" is only based on the confusion that Capitalism is identified with the old
liberal laisser- faire relatively small-scale Capitalism or individualism of the
nineteenth century, while Socialism is identified with

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE CORPORATE STATE 213

State intervention. Hence the most typical characteristics of modern Capitalism or
Imperialism, with the increasing role of the State in its Organisation, are described as
"Socialism, while the realities of wage- labour, profits and class-division are
unchanged and even intensified. This muddle-headed confusion, which is common to all
capitalist, Labourist and Fascist ideology, and is the breeding-ground for all the
demagogic attempts of Fascism to conceal its capitalist character, becomes impossible as
soon as the class-analysis of Capitalism is understood. Fascism by all the above tests is
economically identical with Capitalism, representing only a special method to maintain its
power and hold down the workers. Fascism is profit-making society, is class- society, is
society based on exploitation. Alike in Italy and in Germany, production is carried on for
profit; the means of production are the property of a small minority, the upper strata of
whom draw large incomes through their ownership; the mass of the workers are cut off from
ownership, and work for a wage, producing surplus-value for the owners, or are left
unemployed, if it is not profitable to employ them. All these are the familiar
characteristics of capitalism in all countries, as are equally the crisis, depression,
decline of production and mass unemployment. The Fascist countries show no difference from
the other capitalist countries in any of these respects. Fascist Italy and Fascist Germany
are no better off than non-Fascist France and non-Fascist 13 ritain (in fact worse off,
but for reasons not necessarily connected with Fascism); they are all economically in the
same boat, in the capitalist boat. The only contrast is provided by the land of socialist
construction, the Soviet Union, with its ending of unemployment and gigantic rise of
production alongside the decline in all Fascist or other capitalist countries. It is
necessary at the outset to insist on these very elementary facts, before examining more
closely the specific economic institutions of Fascism, because Fascist propaganda, which
is characterised by brazenness of assertion rather than any attempt at objective or
scientific character, is so insistent on denying the capitalist basis of Fascism that it
may easily confuse those who mistake words for facts. As this plea is at the heart of the
economic apologies for Fascism, it will be necessary to examine more closely, first, the
Fascist line of expression on

214 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Capitalism; second, the Fascist line of expression on "Socialism," as
exemplified in "National Socialism"; and finally, the positive economic
principles and practice of Fascism, as exemplified in the Corporate State or in the German
Labour Code. The Fascist line of expression on Capitalism is marked by extreme
self-contradiction. According to Hitler, there is no such thing as the "capitalist
system." He writes: There does not exist a capitalist system. The employers have
worked their way up to the top by their industry and efficiency. And by virtue of this
selection, which shows that they belong to a higher type, they have the right to lead.
Every leader of industry will forbid any interference by a factory council. According to
Mussolini, however, in his speech to the Council of Corporations on November 14, 1933, the
present crisis is "a general crisis of capitalism." He defines Capitalism as
follows: Capitalism in its most highly developed form is a mass production for mass
consumption, financed nationally and internationally by anonymous capital. Having thus
brilliantly "defined" Capitalism in terms of "capital" (he is
compelled to tie himself up in this way, for if he were to attempt to analyse capital, he
would be compelled to lay bare the capitalist basis of Fascism), he proceeds to
distinguish three periods of capitalism, the period of free competition from 1830 to 1870,
the "static" or "stagnating" period of the great trusts from 1870 to
1913, and the period of "decadence" since the war (here we have only a very
confused and mangled borrowing from Lenin's Imperialism). He then poses the question: The
crisis which has held us in its clutches for four years-is it a crisis in the capitalist
system or of the capitalist system? And he reaches the answer that the crisis which has
held "us" (Fascist Italy) in its clutches for four years is "a crisis of
the capitalist system" (which Hitler says does not exist). But having reached this
important admission, he then endeavours to argue that Italy is "not a capitalist
country." Upon what does he base this argument? On the plea that in Italy there is a
majority proportion of agriculture and small industry (as if this made any difference to
the dominance of the capitalist class

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE CORPORATE STATE 215

and of capitalist exploitation, which knows very well how to suck the labours, not only
of the industrial workers, but also of the peasants and small producers). But if this
structure makes Italy "not capitalist," this structure applied equally to Italy
before Fascism, and Italy was accordingly "not capitalist" also before Fascism.
But if Italy was "not capitalist" before Fascism, what was it? Again he can give
no answer which would not undermine his whole attempt to present Fascist Italy as any
different in its essential capitalist basis from pre-Fascist Italy. Finally he argues
that, since the corporate system has admittedly failed to save Italy from the crisis of
capitalism "which has held us in its clutches for four years," therefore the
corporate system may be recommended to other capitalist countries to save them equally: We
come to the last question: Can the corporative principle be applied in other countries?
There is no doubt about it. As there is a general crisis of capitalism, solution by the
Corporate State seems to be necessary in other countries. However, in that case he would
need to show that "solution by the Corporate State" has applied to Italy,
which has suffered as heavily from the capitalist crisis as any other capitalist country.
But when the crisis broke on Italy in 1929-30, what was his line? Did he argue that
"solution by the Corporate State" would save Italy? On the contrary, he argued
that Fascist Italy was helpless to do any more about the crisis than any other capitalist
country. In his speech of October 1, he declared: The situation has grown considerably
worse throughout the world, including Italy. . . . The State cannot perform miracles. Not
even Mr. Hoover, the most powerful man in the world in the richest country in the world,
has succeeded in putting his house in order.

"The State" (i.e., the Fascist State) "cannot perform miracles." It
cannot hope to do more than other capitalist countries. Quite right, and very honestly
said for once. But in that case what happens to the boasted superiority of Fascism and the
supposed emancipation of Fascism from capitalism and its contradictions? It is evident
that we have here a mere tangle of confusions and self-contradictions (which could be
endlessly further

216 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

exemplified from the statements of all the principal Fascist leaders in all countries),
without attempt at serious thinking. Let us now turn to the Fascist line on
"Socialism." According to Mussolini, in his speech on January 13, 1934,
"Socialism" is condemned outright as "the bureaucratisation of
economy." According to German Fascism, "Socialism" is the ideal, provided
it is "National Socialism." But what do they mean by "Socialism"? The
definitions given by the leaders of German Fascism afford an instructive variety of
choice. The thirteenth point of the official party programme calls for "the
nationalisation of all trusts." However, the official economic theorist of the party,
Feder, explains in his Manifesto on the suppression of interest-slavery: Every honest
politician knows that general socialisation means economic collapse and the absolute
bankruptcy of the State. Our watchword must be, not "socialisation," but
"desocialisation." Goebbels in his Little A.B.C. of the National Socialists,
states: The Socialisation of all the means of production is absolutely
unachievable.Addressing a group of business men at Hamburg on December 15, 1933, Feder won
their applause by declaring that "the State must not engage in business itself as a
competitor," and adding, "Don't be afraid your enterprises will be
nationalised." Where then is the "Socialism"? Explanations are forthcoming
in abundance. Gregor Strasser, speaking on the radio on behalf of the party on June 14,
1932, gave the following comprehensive definition: By socialism we understand governmental
measures for the protection of the individual or the group against any sort of
exploitation. The taking over of the railways by the State, of the street- cars, power
plants and gas works by the municipalities; the emancipation of the peasants by Baron von
Stein, and the incorporation of the guild system into the State; the Prussian officers'
system of selection by achievement; the incorruptibility of the German official; the old
walls, the town hall, the cathedral of the free Imperial citythese are all
expressions of German Socialism as we conceive and demand it. "Socialism," after
passing gently through the stages of gas-and-water Fabianism and an admixture of
"guilds," thus comes to

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE CORPORATE STATE 217

rest at last in the solid ground of "the old walls ... .. the cathedral" and
"the Prussian officers' system," Goebbels is still more explicit in his brochure
Prussia Must Become Prussian Again: Socialism is Prussianism (Preussentum). The conception
"Prusianism" is identical with what we mean by Socialism. And again in a speech
in East Prussia: Our Socialism is that which animated the kings of Prussia, and which
reflected itself in the march-step of the Prussian Grenadier regiments: a socialism of
duty. It is impossible not to recall Marx's comments on "German Socialism"
(despite all the differences) nearly a century ago: German Socialism recognised its own
calling as the bombastic representative of the petit-bourgeois Philistine. It proclaimed
the German nation to be the model nation, and the German petit-bourgeois Philistine to be
the typical man. To every typical meanness of this model man it gave a hidden, higher,
"socialist" interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to
the length of directly opposing the "brutally destructive" tendency of
Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class struggles.
But this old "German Socialism," which Marx thus castigated, was by comparison
the noblest-bearted idealism if set against the conscious and open filth of their
"German Socialist" descendants of the twentieth century, the bootlickers of
reaction and murderers of the workers, dressing up the hated Prussian, militarist,
absolutist corpse as "Socialism." It is obvious that the Fascist conceptions on
"Socialism" are even less worthy of serious discussion than their conceptions on
"Capitalism." It remains to consider their supposed "new" and
"distinctive" programme: the Corporate State "the greatest constructive
conception yet devised by the mind of man" (Mosley). What is the Corporate State? The
basic official document of principles, the Italian Labour Charter, published in 1927, lays
down the following (7): The Corporate State considers that in the sphere of production
private initiative is the most effective and valuable instrument in the interests of the
nation. Since private enterprise is a function of national concern, the

218 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the manage ment of its
production. From the fact that the elements of production (labour and capital) are
co-operators in a common enterprise, reciprocal rights and duties devolve upon them. The
employee, whether labourer, clerk or skilled workman, is an active collaborator in the
economic enterprise, responsibility for the direction of which rests with the employer.
These principles are tolerably familiar in all capitalist countries. The standard
semi-official work on the question, Fausto Pitigliani's "The Italian Corporative
State" (P. S. King, 1933, written "in close contact with the Ministry of
Corporations") declares: The idea of the sovereignty of the State and of national
unity is the primary motive underlying the Fascist theory of govern. ment. . . . Parallel
to this unifying principle . . . there is to be noted another concept implicit in the
State system which Fascism desires to build up, namely, the economic collaboration of the
various categories engaged in production. This new economic departure may be said to lie
somewhere between Liberalism . . . and Communism. . . . The different categories of
producers are represented officially by various Occupational Associations. . . . These
Occupational Associations, consisting solely of employers or of workers or of persons
belonging to one or other of the liberal professions, are grouped in Corporations for
purposes of protection and development of some specific branch of production. These
advisory bodies are organs of State, and they embody all the elements involved in a given
branch of production, namely, capital, labour and technical direction. It is precisely
from the character of these institutionsso distinctive a feature of the new political and
economic order in Italy-that the epithet of "corporative" is derived, which
serves to differentiate the Fascist State in its particular characteristics from other
State types. Paul Einzig in his pro-Fascist "Economic Foundations of Fascism"
(1933) describes the Corporate State as "a new economic system that differs
fundamentally from Liberal Capitalism and Communism": In the Corporate State private
property is respected just as in any capitalist country. There is no expropriation without
compensation. The State reserves the right, however, to limit and guide the employment of
the means of production, and to intervene in the process of

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE CORPORATE STATE 219

distribution in accordance with public interest. It does not aim at owning the means of
production any more than in a capitalist country. Private ownership is the rule, and State
ownership the exception. Individual initiative is not superseded by State intervention.
But the Government reserves the right to supplement individual initiative whenever this is
considered necessary; to prevent it from developing in directions detrimental to public
interest, and to guide it so as to obtain the maximum benefit for the community as a
whole. Mosley in his Fascism in Britain describes the Corporate State as follows. Our
policy is the establishment of the Corporate State. As the name implies, this means a
State organised like the human body. Every member of that body acts in harmony with the
purpose of the whole under the guidance and driving brain of the Fascist Government. This
does not mean that industry will be conducted or interfered with from Whitehall, as in
Socialist organisation. But it does mean that the limits within which interests may
operate will be laid down by Government, and that those limits will be the welfare of the
nation as a whole. To that interest of the nation as a whole, all lesser interests are
subordinate, whether of Right or of Left, whether they be employers' federation,
trade union, banking or professional interests. All such interests are woven into the
permanently functioning machinery of Corporate Government. Within the Corporate structure
interests such as trade unions and employers' federations will no longer be the general
staffs of opposing armies, but the joint directors of national enterprise. Classwar will
give place to national co-operation. All who pursue a sectional and anti-national policy
will be opposed by the might of the organized State. Profit can be made provided that the
activity enriches the nation as well as the individual. Profit may not be made at the
expense of the nation and of the working class. The Corporate State will secure that the
nation, and the workers who are part of the nation will share fully in the benefits and
rewards of industry. The Corporations, it should be noted, are "advisory" bodies
(Pitigliani). Control rests with the private employer in his enterprise, and with the
State above him, as in all capitalist countries. The Corporations are joint-committees of
employers' representatives and so-called "workers' representatives" (after the
destruction of all independent workers' organisation). Only the "workers'
organisations" recognised by the Fascist State, not those chosen by the workers, are
admitted, the only

220 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

legal requirement being that they should represent one-tenth of the workers in an
industry to secure sole recognition as representing all the workers in the industry. The
functions of the Corporations (Article 44 of the Decree of July 1, 1926) are: (i)
conciliation; (ii) encouragement of measures "to coordinate production and improve
its Organisation"; (iii) establishment of labour exchanges; (iv) regulation of
training and apprenticeship. The purely nominal stage-dressing character of the
Corporations is shown by the fact that up to 1933, eleven years after the establishment of
the Fascist regime, not a single Corporation had yet been established, except for the
amusement "industry" (in 1930). The work will be done directly by the Minister
of Corporations, and hence these largely nominal bodies will be not merely "organs of
the State," as the theory demands, but really mere additional powers for present
politicians. As a result, not a single corporation has been formally created. (H. W.
Schneider, Making the Fascist State, 1928.)

In 1933 Pitigliani, in his semi-official work already quoted, in the fourth chapter on
"Corporative Organisation," coming to his third section under the grandiose
title "The Corporations in their Actual Working," is compelled to write under
that title (like the famous chapter on Snakes in Iceland): It is impossible to judge in
the light of any practical results how the system is actually working in the corporative
field properly so-called. Reference has already been made to the fact that only a single
corporation, viz., that of the stage, has so far been established in Italy. In November
1933, the Milan correspondent of the Times wrote (November 28, 1933):  Much is beard
of the Corporative State. The Ministry of Corporations was created, and there are the
National Council of Corporations, the Corporative Central Committee, and so on; but so
far, the Corporations, that is, the organs which must apply the principle on which the
whole reform is based, have not appeared. Only in May, 1934, when this criticism of the
absence of any actual Corporations had begun to become widespread, a decision was hastily
announced, at a meeting of the "Central Corporative Committee" convened under
Mussolini on May 9,

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE CORPORATE STATE 221

1934) to "create twenty-two Corporations" at a single stroke (Times, May 10,
1934). What, then, does the Corporate State, as so far described in the terms of its own
advocates, actually represent? Its principles, according to these descriptions, amount in
fact to the following: I. Maintenance of the class-structure of society, and of class-
exploitation, under cover of phrases about "organic unity," etc.;* 2.
Maintenance of capitalist ownership, "private enterprise," "profits,"
etc.; 3.Moderate State intervention or regulatory role, where necessary; 4. Compulsory
conciliation committees or joint industrial councils of capital and labour. But so far
this is identical with the principles of all modern capitalist states. The cool effrontery
of attempting to present this as something "new" is only based on the naive
trick of The transparent deception, which is at the root of the "Corporate
State," of maintaining class-division in fact and denying it in words, is strikingly
expressed by Rossoni, writing as President of the National Confederation of Fascist
Syndicates on "The Significance of Fascist Syndicalism" in the Yearbook of
Fascist Studies, 1928: "The conception of Fascist Syndicalism changes the outlook of
all those engaged in industry, and takes from Socialism all that it has of value. Even the
old terminology of 'masters' and 'men' is changing. Ile word 'master' has an offensive
meaning and implies the servitude of labour, a servitude which is in direct contradiction
to modern progress. The Italian scheme of Corporations brings about a much-needed
co-operation between the directors and the executors of an undertaking, and is the only
present-day conception which entails equilibrium and economic justice. "It should be
emphasised that it was these very Fascist organisers who were the first to insist that the
old expressions 'masters' and 'men' should be abolished, and this because master supposes
servant. Nowadays we are no longer able to concur with the old absurd idea of
class-distinctions, nor do we hold that there is by nature any moral inferiority between
men. On the contrary, it is fully recognised that all men have the same right to
citizenship in the national life." It will be seen that the "absurd idea of
class-distinctions" is regarded as solely a question of "terminology."
Hence, while Socialism aims at overcoming the classdivision of society by the abolition of
classes and thus achieving for the first time real social unity, Fascism proposes a verbal
liquidation of classes, while the reality remains. Employers and wage-earners remain; the
whole system of profits and exploitation remains; but these are to be covered by the new
terms "directors" and "executors" of an undertaking or in the German
labour code, "leaders" and "followers"), and thereafter it is assumed
that the class struggle should end. This is typical of the "idealist" outlook of
Fascism-or, to speak more frankly, of its humbug.

222 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

making the comparison with the long-ago defunct, preimperialist,
"laisser-faire," capitalist epoch. Ever since the imperialist epoch all modern
capitalism has developed increasing state regulation and control, co-ordination and
cartellisation under state guidance , and a hundred thousand experiments and devices in
joint industrial councils and every other possible mechanism for the collaboration of
capital and labour. As for the conception of industry as a "public service," and
the approval of profit-making only in so far as it is consistent with "national
welfare," it really does not need a Fascist "revolution" in order to be
able to repeat the wisdom of a Callisthenes. The practical meaning of the Fascist
"revolution" and its "Corporate State" lies elsewhere, as we shall
shortly see. Take, for example , pre-Fascist Germany, where the State already held in its
hands one-tenth of industrial production held the dominating shares in the big banks, in
shipping and in the Steel Trust, and where industry and capital-labour relations were
covered by a network of regulating councils. C. B. Hoover writes in his book already
quoted: Cartellisation had been carried to further limits than in any other country. In
1932 there were some 3,000 of these cartels. In the coal and potassium mining industry
syndication was compulsory, and complicated regulating councils known as the Federal Coal
Council and the Federal Potassium Council had been set up. Upon these Councils the
operators , labourers, consumers and coal merchants were represented. There was a Federal
Economic Council, but its regulatory functions had failed to develop. This Federal Coal
Council, based on compulsory syndication representing employers, workers, consumers and
coal merchants, with wide regulatory powers, was already a very much more developed
"Corporation" than anything produced by Fascism. But this was only an advanced
example of the tendency of modern capitalist development throughout the world. Here
Fascism brings nothing new. "The idea of a National Council," writes Mosley in
his Greater Britain, with the complacency of an infant peacock, "was, I believe,
first advanced in my speech on resignation from the Labour Government in May 1930. The
idea has since been developed by Sir Arthur Salter and other writers." The history of
Capitalism since the war is littered with "the idea of a National Council"
(i.e., National Economic Council

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE CORPORATE STATE 223

or National Council of Industry) in every country. Clemenceau in 1918 proposed the
formation of a National Economic Council, and the proposal only broke down on the
opposition of the Confederation of Labour. Rathenau in his new proposals for state
organisation put in the centre the formation of a representative State Economic Council.
Millerand in 1920 proposed the incorporation of a National Economic Council, including
representatives of the trade unions, in the state. Caillaux made the same proposal in his
Ou va la France, ou va I'Europe? The National Industrial Conference in Britain in 1919 put
forward similar proposals for the establishment of a permanent representative National
Industrial Council. The whole trend of post-war Liberalism, Labourism and Social
Democracy, in particular, is closely parallel to the Fascist line and propaganda of the
Corporate State-i.e., the general line of combination of state control and private
enterprise, co-ordination through a network of regulating councils, classcollaboration and
so- called workers' representation, in short, the whole myth of "Organised
Capitalism." The great part of the Liberal Yellow Book, of Labour and the Nation and
of the Fascist Labour Charter could be interchanged without noticeable difference.
Nevertheless, there is a "new" and distinct feature in the Fascist Corporate
State. All the Liberal-Labour proposals are based on the incorporation of the existing
workers' organisations into the capitalist state, with the maintenance of the formal
independent rights of organisation and the right to strike. The Fascist policy of the
Corporate State is based on the violent destruction of the workers' independent
organisations and the complete abolition of the right to strike. This is the sole new
feature of the Fascist Corporate State, to which modern Capitalism elsewhere has not yet
dared to advance, although developing in this direction as rapidly as it is able. The
Italian Law of Syndicates of April 3, 1926, the basis of the Corporate State, lays down in
Article 18: Employees and labourers who in groups of three or more cease work by
agreement, or who work in such a manner as to disturb its continuity or regularity, in
order to compel the employers to change the existing contracts, are punishable by a fine
of from 100 to 1,000 lire. The chiefs, promoters and organisers of the crimes mentioned

224 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

above are punishable by imprisonment for not less than one year, nor more than two
years, in addition to the fines prescribed above. Here is the real heart of the Fascist
Corporate State; all the rest is window-dressing. The meaning of this is expressed with
simple delight by the financial Publicist, Einzig, in his Economic Foundations of Fascism
(a book written for the business public) Strikes and lock-outs were outlawed from the very
outset of the Fascist regime (p. ii). In no country was it so easy as in Italy to obtain
the consent of employees to a reduction in wages (P. 31 Thanks to the establishment of
industrial peace, wages in Italy are more elastic than in any other country p. 73).
"In no country was it so easy to obtain a reduction in wages." Here is the
essence of the Corporate State. Similarly Augusto Turati, Secretary-General of the Fascist
Party, wrote in 1928: The year 1927 was one of widespread economic depression.... It was
necessary for the Government of the Fascist Party to take steps with the object of
bringing about a general reduction of wages from 110 to 20 per cent. . . . It was then
that the Labour Charter showed itself to be the one secure point of reference in the
negotiations which followed. In the ungrateful task of reducing wages, not one of the
principles, solemnly enunciated in the Labour Charter, was violated. (A. Turati,
Secretary-General of the Fascist Party, on "The Labour Charter," in the
International Yearbook of Fascist Studies, 1928.) And the prominent Fascist trade union
official, Olivetti, declared at the Fascist Trades Union Congress in 1928: Á It was an
illusion to presume that the existence of class-war had been finally abolished. It has
been abolished . . . for the workers. On the other side, class-war is being continued. Á
The German Labour Code, brought into force on May I, 1934, reveals the same picture. Its
essence is the wiping out of all the collective contracts which have hitherto regulated
German industry, and the establishment of the absolute power of the employer, called
"the leader of the factory," over his workers, called "followers." Á
In the factory the employer, as the leader of the factory, and the workers and clerical
employees as his followers, work jointly to further the aims of the factory in the joint
interests of the people

THE OUTCOME OF FASCISM IN THE ECONOMIC SPHERE 225

and of the State. The decision of the leader of the factory is binding on his followers
in all factory matters. In place of the previous elected works councils, the new factory
councils are to be appointed by the employer in agreement with the Nazi leader in the
factory, and to meet only when called by the employer. All collective agreements for
industries or trades as a whole, or even for districts, are annulled; wages are to be
fixed separately by each firm according to the conditions of "profitableness."
The last word rests with the "Labour Trustees" or district dictators on all
questions of wages and abour conditions, appointed by the Nazi Government. The character
of these "Labour Trustees" can be judged from the fact that the big
industrialist, Krupp, has been appointed "Labour Trustee" for the Ruhr area. The
destruction of all independent workers' organisation, the complete slave-subjection of the
workers to the employers, the abolition of the right to strike, and intensified
exploitation-this is the sole and entire reality of the Corporate State for the working
class. 4. The Outcome of Fascism in the Economic Sphere. Fortunately the Italian people is
not yet accustomed to eat several times a day. Its standard of living is so low that it
feels scarcity and suffering less. (Mussolini, speech to the Italian Senate on December
18, 1930, Corriera della Sera, December 19, 1930.) The principal reasoned claim put
forward by Fascism on its own behalf, on the rare occasions when it descends from
emotional chauvinist and spiritual verbiage to endeavour to make a reasoned claim, is that
Fascism provides a solution of the economic crisis of modern capitalist society and
ensures economic harmony, prosperity and progress. Fascism in its propaganda promises t e
solution of unemployment, rising production and consumption, higher wages, higher profits,
and in general the end of all the contradictions of capitalism without ending capitalism.
The decisive test of this claim is the test of facts-the facts of the economic situation
in every country where Fascism rules, and above all in Italy, the land of the
"Corporate State," where the Fascist regime has had twelve years to show its
results. That the word crisis of capitalism has hit Italy as hard as any

226 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

other capitalist country, with colossal unemployment, falling production and trade, and
lowered wages, so that Fascism has brought no immunity whatever from the common ills of
capitalism, even the official apologists of Fascism are compelled to admit. But in fact
the economic crisis hit Italy before the world crisis, while the rest of the capitalist
world was enjoying a boom, and then became further intensified by the world crisis. The
pro-Fascist Einzig writes in his Economic Foundations of Fascism: Between 1926 and 1930
the depression prevailing in Italy presented a discouraging contrast with the prosperity
of most other countries. But that prosperity has since been proved to be fictitious, so
that we are now in a position to say that Italy has missed little by failing to share it.
Moreover, during her period of depression Italy became hardened to face the subsequent
crisis. If this is the best that a supporter of Fascism on economic grounds can claim, it
is scarcely an advertisement. The only "consolation" for the failure of Italy
under Fascism to share in even the limited upward movement of other capitalist countries
between 1926 and 1930 is found in the fact that in consequence even the world crisis could
hardly make things much worse than they were already in Italy. According to the League of
Nations World Economic Survey 1932-3, the national income in Italy fell from 94 billion
lire in 1928 to 60-70 billion lire in 1931, or a drop of one-third. In the same period in
the Soviet Union, according to the same authority, the total income rose from 18.6 billion
gold roubles to 31.2 billions, or an increase by two- thirds. Foreign trade in 1932 was
less than half the volume of 1930; and the tonnage of goods cleared at the ports in 1932
was actually less than in 1913, when the population was six millions fewer. Italy keeps no
general index of production; but the production of pig iron which was 603,000 tons in
1913, was 461,ooo tons in 1932. The production of steel was raised to 2.1 million tons in
1929, but fell to 1-4 millions in 1932. 1933 saw a slight upward movement as in other
countries, but foreign trade continued to fall from 15-1 million lire in 1932 to 13-3
million in 1933. The Budget deficit rose from 504 million lire in 1930- 31 to 3,687
millions in 11932-3. The floating debt rose from 1,618 million lire in June 1928, to 8,912
millions in June 1933. THE OUTCOME OF FASCISM IN THE ECONOMIC SPHERE 227

Bankruptcies in 1931 reached the record in Europe, exceeding 21,000, or five times the
British total. The unemployment record is still more revealing. The total of
industrial and commercial wage-earners was returned in 1933 at 4,283,000, or about
one-quarter of the British total. Yet the official return of wholly unemployed for 1933,
monthly average, stood at T,o18,ooo, and in January 1934, the latest return available at
the time of writing, stood at 1,158,000 in addition to about a quarter of a million
returned as partially or seasonally unemployed. As for unemployment insurance, "the
amount of unemployment insurance is moderate, even for the low standard of living
prevailing, and it is paid only for a short period" (Einzig, Economic Foundations of
Fascism). For forty weeks' contributions only three months' benefit is paid, at a maximum
Of 3.75 lire or IId. a day; there is no transitional benefit. In December 193 1, Of 982,32
1 registered unemployed, only 195,454 were receiving benefit. Between 1919 and 1929 the
Unemployment Fund received 1,275 million lire in contributions from the employers and
workers, the State contributing nothing, and paid Out Only 413 millions in benefits the
State constantly raiding the Fund for its own purposes. Truly a halcyon state of affairs
from the capitalist point of view, at which even the skinflints of the National Government
might look with despairing envy. It may be noted that the social services expenditure in
Italy is among the lowest of any leading country in Europe, amounting to 3 per cent. of
the total national budget, as against 7 per cent. in Belgium or 9 per cent. in Britain.
The wage-cutting record gives the final stamp on the realities of Fascist economics.
Between 1929 and 1932 the total pay-roll of wages and salaries fell from 6,040 million
lire to 4,100 millions (World Economic Survey 1932-3). In the same period, according to a
Report of the Director of the International Labour Office in June 1933, "the
purchasing-power of the wage-earners fell by 19 per cent." Cuts had been heavy
already before the world crisis: Between June 1927 and December 1928, wages fell by about
20 per cent. as a result of agreements between masters and men in connection with the
stabilisation of the lira. A further drop of approximately 10 per cent. took place in
1929, and in November 1930 there was a general downward movement, in some cases not

228 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

exceeding 18 per cent., but in particular instances involving as much as 25 per cent.
Moreover we must not overlook the fact that many other adjustments were made in 1931
(Biagi, Secretary of the National Confederation of Fascist Syndicates, Corriera della
Sera, March 26, 1932.) This makes successive cuts, first Of 20 per cent., then of 10 per
cent., then of 18-25 per cent., in addition to "many other adjustments." The
Department of Overseas Trade Report on Economic Conditions in Italy 1933, states: While
the cost of living with an index figure of 93.78 in 1927 has fallen in 1932 to 78-05, a
difference of 15.73 per cent., industrial wages have been reduced by much larger
proportions. . . . Cuts have been made ranging from 16 to 18 per cent. in the sheltered
printing and woodworking trades, 25 per cent. in the metal and chemical industries, to 40
per cent. in the cotton industry. . . . To the above must be added arbitrary reductions
affected by various means without negotiation, such as the re-grading of workstaff and the
systematic reduction of piece-work rates. Examples are given of the percentage cuts
in the various industries: Chemicals....20-25% Silk Weaving....38% Rayon ....20% jute
....30% Rayon (Turin)....38% Metal trades....23% Glass ....30-40% Building ....30% Cotton
....40% Mining ....30% Wool ....27

%This process has been carried still further with the extensive all-round wages and
salaries cuts proclaimed by Government Order in April, 1934. The importance of the Fascist
"Corporate" system, making strikes a penal offence, is obvious. If we turn to
Germany, it is clear that one year's experience is not yet sufficient to achieve the
imposing completeness of the Italian results in depressing the conditions of the workers
and spreading poverty; but the signs of the direction are already abundant. Foreign trade
in 1933 fell by 13 per cent. in comparison with 1932, exports by 16 per cent. and the
export surplus by 40 per cent. The volume of production rose by 12 per cent.; but this
rise was mainly in industries (iron and steel, dyes and chemicals, artificial silk,
electro- technical, motors) connected with war

THE OUTCOME OF FASCISM IN THE ECONOMIC SPHERE 229

needs, and was actually accompanied, as will be seen, by a fall in the general standard
of living. The rise in output was not accompanied by any rise in the total pay-roll until
the third quarter. "This means that fresh employment was only found at the expense of
those already occupied, by cutting down their hours of work and reducing their wages
accordingly" (Economist, December 30, 1933). Retail sales, the measure of internal
trade and of the standard of living, fell heavily, even compared with the low level of
1932: Retail sales of the first ten months of 1933 were 8 per cent. below those of the
very depressed corresponding period of 1932, department store sales declining 20 per cent.
on a like comparison, and later reports indicate substantial further decline. (New York
Annalist, January 19, 1934.) This reflects a lowered standard of life. The German
Institute for Economic Research reported a decline of 10 per cent. in the consumption of
the principal foodstuffs during the first and second quarters of 1933, in some articles of
even 30 per cent., and "stabilisation" at this lower level in the third quarter.
For the whole of 1933 it reported a decline Of 7 per cent. in the turnover of retail
commodities, compared with 1932. Prices rose steadily, especially of foodstuffs, through
special legislation, e.g., the Fat Monopoly and raising of the price of margarine by 175
per cent., the raising of the price of wheat to 182 marks per ton or four times the world
price, etc.  Nazi propaganda tries to make much of the rise in the volume of
production by 12 per cent. during 1933, "and of the decline in the official figure of
registered unemployed by 2 millions on the previous 6 millions (actually by 1.7 millions
from 5,773,000 in December 1932, to 4,058,000 in December 1933). Both claims are
misleading. The rise in production was, as explained in great part connected with the war
industries. It was not a rise peculiar to Germany, but was part of a world movement during
the same period. Between January and December, 1933, the German index of industrial
production (on the basis of 1928 as 100) rose from 62.9 to 72.8, the United States index
from 58.6 to 67.6, the French from 78.7 to 83.5, the Japanese from 117.2 to 139-4
(November), the Canadian from 52.8 to 72.2, the Swedish from 83.7 to 97.1 (League of
Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, March 1934)

230 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The figures of the alleged decline in unemployment are still more misleading. The
official figure is given of a decline in the registered unemployed from 6,014,000 in
January 1933, to 3,715,000 in November 1933, and to 2,798,000 in March, 1934. But the
total of employed workers in November 1933, according to the health insurance statistics,
was 14,020,000, making with the 3,715,000 registered unemployed a combined total of
17,735,000 workers. In August 1929, that is, before the crisis, the same combined total of
employed and unemployed workers numbered 20,400,000. Thus, since 1929, 2.3 million workers
have dropped clean out of the German official statistics, being neither entered as
employed, nor as unemployed-alongside an increase in population! "The actual number
of unemployed is admitted to be considerably larger than the number registered. The
'invisible unemployed' are now reckoned at about 1,500,000" Manchester Guardian
Weekly, January 12, 1934). "Most signs tend to show that the volume of unrecorded
unemployment has increased" (Economist, March 3, 1934). This contradiction was
strikingly brought out when in March, 1934, the official figure for unemployment was
returned at 2,798,000, and in the very same month Hitler, momentarily forgetful of the
official figure, in his speech at Munich on March 21, spoke of the necessity during the
coming year to endeavour to bring into employment 5,000,000 Of those at present
unemployed. The official decline in registered unemployed in fact reflects a series of
factors. Married women have been driven out of industry without being registered as
unemployed, consequent on the Nazi law forbidding the employment of married women where
their husbands are employed, and thus disappear from the official records. The same
applies to the prisoners in concentration camps, and to the Jewish and political refugees.
Several hundreds of thousands of workers (estimated at 680,000-Basel Rundschau, November
18, 1933), have been drafted into the militarised labour camps, agricultural service and
other works schemes, and are thus counted as "employed," but in fact receive no
normal wage, but either only food and a few marks a week or a very low subsistence
allowance equivalent to unemployment relief. Finally throughout industry, by a series of
devices THE OUTCOME OF FASCISM IN THE ECONOMIC SPHERE 231

offering inducements for this process to employers, workers have been given part-time
work by spreading existing work, with reduced hours and weekly wages, that is, at the
expense of other workers, and of a general lowering of standards. On the whole process the
British financial journal, The Statist, comments, with reference to Hitler's anniversary
speech to the Reichstag: As regard economic affairs he had not very much to say, perhaps
because there is not much to report. He claimed, as the figures show, a reduction in
unemployment Of 21/2 millions to about 3.7 millions. But this is obviously not a reliable
guide to the trend of industrial conditions, since, apart from labour immobilisation in
labour camps and concentration camps, the effect of the tax certificate system has been to
spread employment out over the work available rather than to succeed in creating new work.
There has, however, been some improvement in production, particularly in iron and steel,
in 1933 as compared with 1932, and doubtless this has meant some real decrease in
unemployment. The improvement in employment is therefore only partly due to a net increase
in the demand for labour, and it arises mainly from spreading out employment. This may be
a good thing psychologically, but economically it results in lower wages and even in lower
real wages. In addition to this lowering of the standard of living, there must be counted
the numerous "voluntary" contributions which have to be deducted from the weekly
wages. It is possible as a result that the beneficial political effect of spreading
employment may be lost in the lowering of the standard of living, and probably for this
reason Herr Hitler did not devote much of his speech to economic affairs. (Statist,
February 3, 1934.) This process of effective wage-reduction and lowering of the standard
of living, already revealed in the statistics of falling consumption during 1933, is
further borne out by the available information on the movement of wages. The official
statistics claim that the total of wages plus salaries for the third quarter Of 1933
exceeded the corresponding total for 1932 by 4 per cent., alongside an increase in the
number employed by 7 per cent.; it is obvious that even these figures, which do not take
into account the heavily increased deductions from wages, nevertheless betray a net
reduction in the wage per worker. It may be noted that the total return from the tax on
wages, which reached 65 million marks for the monthly average in 1932, fell to 61.3
millions in July 1933) and 59.6 millions in August 1933-the very period of the supposed
"increase"

232 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

(Jahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik, December 1933). A correspondent in the
Manchester Guardian reports: Wages fell considerably in Germany in 1932, and there was a
further fall last year. At present the average hourly wage is about 20 per cent. lower
than in 1931. The fall in wages has been accompanied by a great increase in the deductions
for income tax, unemployment insurance, sickness insurance, etc., which have more than
doubled. In 1932 these deductions amounted to between 12 and 13 per cent. of the
wages. They now amount to nearly 27 per cent., including "voluntary"
contributions . . . which are voluntary only in name. According to calculations made by a
very competent statistician, the net average wage of workmen employed in German industry
last September was 2 1.65 marks a week. . . . If agricultural workers were included, the
average net wage would be much lower. The "real wages" (purchasing power) of the
German industrial workers have fallen since April rather more than the money wages, as
general prices, which in the first four months of last year were lower than the average of
1932, have risen about 3 per cent. since April, and prices of primary necessities have
risen about 10 per cent. The average real wage in September 1933, was about 3 1 per cent.
lower than in 1900.- (Manchester Guardian Weekly, January 12, 1934.) On April 9 Dr. Ley,
head of the "Labour Front," declared in a speech at Cologne that the German
worker "to some extent was being paid starvation wages in the interest of the
reconstruction of the nation," but that he must, while the State "was finding
bread and work for 7,000,000 unemployed, renounce wage increases and such like
things."(Times, April 10, 1934.) This is already before the Labour Code, with its
abrogation of all existing collective contracts, came into force on May I, 1934. It is
sufficiently clear that the economic process of Fascism in Germany goes the same path as
in Italy, the path of the extreme depression of the standards of the workers and
intensification of exploitation. The lesson of facts in Italy and Germany should put all
on their guard against the empty economic promises and programmes of Fascism before power
in Britain and other countries. 5. Fascism and War. Fascism believes neither in the
possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. . . . War alone brings up to its highest
tension all

FASCISM AND WAR 233

human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to
meet it. (Mussolini, The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism.) In eternal warfare
mankind has become great-in eternal peace mankind would be ruined.- (Hitler, Mein Kampf,
p. 149.) The chauvinistic warlike character of Fascism is its most obvious external
characteristic. The war-role of Fascism can, however, only be correctly understood in
relation to its general social role as the expression of the extreme stage of imperialism
in break-up. On the question of Fascism and war very much nonsense has been written. On
the one hand, bourgeois critics of Fascism in Western Europe and America express their
shocked indignation as if Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy were the first and only
countries to go in for jingoism, wholesale war-incitement and war-preparation, and as if
England, France and the United States were innocent angels of peace. On the other hand,
supporters of Fascism in these countries endeavour to accept at face-value the
transparently hypocritical "peace speeches" occasionally turned out by the
Fascist leaders for foreign consumption, in open and glaring contradiction to their main
utterances, and seek to soothe an alarmed public with fanciful reassurances, as if
Fascism were really a doctrine of world peace. Both these lines of treatment are an absurd
flying in the face of facts. Because Fascism is the leading expression of modern
imperialism, of capitalism in decay, of the most violent policies of capitalism in crisis,
therefore necessarily Fascism means war. Fascism, with its violent suppression of all
socialist, pacifist and internationalist agitation, with its militarisation of labour and
centralised dictatorship, as well as with its ceaseless sabre-rattling agitation, is a
direct part of capitalist war preparation. Its methods and policies reproduce the
conditions of a country at war, as seen in all the belligerent countries in the last war,
but already in the pre-war period. In the same way the final outcome of all the policies
of Fascism, of all its chauvinist, nationally exclusive, aggressive and dominationseeking
policies, can only be war, as indeed its leaders in all

234 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

their principal and most authoritative utterances to their own followers openly
declare. But these tendencies are not peculiar to Fascism. They are common, in greater or
less degree, to all imperialist states. They only receive their most extreme expression in
Fascism. Fascism in Britain, where there is no such immediate easy basis for war agitation
as Versailles provided in Germany and also in Italy, and where mass anti-war feeling is
strong, endeavours to hide for the moment the war-role of Fascism and even to put on a
pacifist dress and present Fascism as a doctrine of world peace. Thus Mosley writes:
Fascist organisation is the method of world peace among nations bound together by the
universal Fascism of the twentieth century. (Mosley, Fascism in Britain, P. 7.) This
blatant attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the credulous is exposed by the entire
propaganda of Fascism. Mosley, who professes to proclaim the aim of "world
peace" through Fascism, will need to fight it out with his masters, Mussolini and
Hitler, who denounce in round terms the whole conception of world peace as incompatible
with Fascism. "Fascism," proclaims Mussolini, "believes neither in the
possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace." "In eternal peace,"
proclaims Hitler, "mankind would be ruined." "Fascism issued from
war," writes the Fascist, Carli, "and in war it must find its outlet." This
is the dominant voice of Fascism. The temporary pretence of British Fascism to put on a
peace advocate's dress is only a typical example of Fascist demagogy. International
Fascism is a contradiction in terms. The foreign policies of Fascist states can only be
the foreign policies of extreme aggressive imperialist states, with all the consequent
antagonisms heightened to the most extreme point. The identity of counter- revolutionary
policy produces no identity of foreign policy. This is strikingly illustrated, as soon as
the first three fully completed Fascist states, Germany, Italy and Austria have come into
existence, by the extreme tension immediately following, even to the point of veiled
war-threats , between Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy over the body of Fascist
Austria. The conception of a Bloc of Fascist States on the basis of a common policy of
Fascism is a myth; an alliance between such States can only be formed where an identity of

FASCISM AND WAR 235

immediate aims of the foreign policy of the imperialist groupings concerned would have
in any case made an alliance possible, whatever the political form. But if the Fascist
type became generalised for all the leading imperialist Powers, this would only mean an
immediate accentuation of the antagonisms and hastening of the advance to war. The extreme
tensity of war-preparations and inculcation of the war spirit in Fascist Germany and
Fascist Italy has been equally noted by observers of all political colours. For the
evidence of the developments in Germany, especially, reference may be made to Wickham
Steed's Hitler: Whence and Whither?, to the American journalist Leland Stowe's Nazi
Germany Means War, and to Ernst Henri's Hitler Over Europe. This does not mean that
Fascist Germany, any more than Fascist Italy, aims at immediate war. To this extent, and
no further, the peace speeches are sincere, in so far as they are calculated to gain time
and cover the necessary process of re-armament. Unless the situation is precipitated by
unexpected events, a preliminary period is sought for the necessary heavy
war-preparations, as well as for the diplomatic preparation of a favourable situation. The
present balance of power is unfavourable to Germany, and the position of Italy is also
weak. But there is no question of the goal to which policy is being directed, As Hitler's
Hein Kampf and Mussolini's speeches make abundantly clear, the full aims of the Fascist
programme of territorial and colonial expansion can only be finally achieved by war.
England, France and the United States, whose statesmen and publicists indulge in
expressions of shocked surprise at the militarism of Fascist Germany or of Japan, are in
fact far more heavily armed than Germany, Italy or Japan, spend more on armaments, and
have bigger records of plunder and armed violence all over the world. But the difference
in the present situation of these two sets of Powers (which partly accounts also for the
more rapid development of Fascist forms in the latter group) lies in the fact that England
and France (the position of the United States, owing to its special continental situation,
is in a category by itself and shares characteristics with both groups) are relatively
"sated" imperialist groups, gorged with world- plunder and seeking above all to
hold what they have, therefore strongly interested in questions of

236 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"security," while Germany, Italy and Japan are "hungry" imperialist
Powers, without an equivalent share in the partition of the world proportionate to their
strength or potential strength, and therefore intent on an aggressive policy of expansion.
This is the working of the law of unequal capitalist development which underlay the last
war and drives to the next. What, however, is conspicuous in the present international
situation is the relative complacency and even conciliatory attitude with which
England, the United States, and even to some extent France, treat the question of
the rearmament of Germany. Where before the slightest diffident requests of Weimar Germany
were met with angry refusals and threats of sanctions, the open violation of Versailles
and blustering demands for re-armament by Fascist Germany are met with anxiously polite
and sympathetic consideration. The only question becomes, not whether re-armament shall be
agreed, but how far and to what point re-armament shall be agreed. The
"Disarmament" Conference dissolves into negotiations for re-armament. At the
same time the simultaneous anxiety of the Western Powers, lest German re- armament go too
far, reveals the profoundly contradictory character of the present situation of
imperialism. What underlies this change of attitude on the part of the Western Powers,
which might at first sight seem contrary to the interests of British and French
Imperialism, and which indeed arouses criticism from strong sections of opinion within
these? Two dominating factors can be traced. The first is the recognition of Fascism as
the bulwark against social revolution, and the anxiety not to weaken in any way the
position of Fascism and thereby open the way to the fall of the Hitler Government and to
the proletarian revolution in Germany. This fear, as a study of the French semi-official
Press makes clear, paralyses the French desire to make use of the threat of sanctions or
of a "preventive war" in order to strangle the re-emergence of the full armed
strength of Germany. As Lloyd George frankly declared in his speech on September 22, 1933:
If the powers succeeded in overthrowing Nazism in Germany, what would follow? Not a
Conservative, Socialist or Liberal regime, but extreme Communism. Surely that could not be
their objective. A Communist Germany would be infinitely more formid

FASCISM AND WAR 237

able than a Communist Russia. The Germans would know how to run their Communism
effectively. That was why every Communist in the world from Russia to America was praying
that the Western nations should bully Germany into a Communist revolution. He would
entreat the Government to proceed cautiously. (Times, September 23, 1933.) The National
Government needed no such entreaties, but has acted throughout as the broker for Fascist
Germany. The second factor is the widespread hope of imperialist circles, especially in
Britain, to use a re-armed Fascist Germany, in unity with Japan, for war on the Soviet
Union. The objective of an expansionist war to the East, directed against the Soviet
Union, and with the support, if possible, of Britain, France and Poland, is continuously
expressed in all official statements of Nazi foreign policy, notably in Hitler's Mein
Kampf, in the writings of Rosenberg, the official chief of the Nazi foreign political
department, whose line is fully and openly set out in his book The Future Path of a German
Foreign Policy (Der Zukunftsweg einer Deutschen A ussenpolitik), and also in the formerly
withdrawn Hugenberg memorandum. Hitler writes: For Germany the only possibility for the
carrying out of a sound territorial policy lay in the winning of new land in Europe
itself. . . . When one would have territory and land in Europe, this could in general only
happen at the cost of Russia. (Mein Kempf, PP. 153-4.) We stop the eternal march to the
south and west of Europe and turn our eyes towards the land in the East.... If we speak of
land in Europe to-day we can only think in the first instance of Russia, and her border
States.-Mein Kampf, P. 743.) The American publicist, Calvin Hoover, reports the following
as his impression of the prevailing tendencies in the event of a possible agreement
between Western Europe and Fascist Germany: In such a case the Western European Powers
might be glad to allow Germany a free band in the Slavic East and South for the
satisfaction of any further expansionist aims. . . . There is evidence that the idea of
the "reorganisation and restoration of Russia" under German tutelage is again
very much to the fore. (Hoover, Germany Enters the Third Reich, pp. 226-7.)

238 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

British imperialism above all encourages up to the present with moral and material
support both Germany and Japan, and influential circles hope for a combined attack of both
Powers on the Soviet Union. At the same time German-Japanese relations are drawn extremely
close. It is unnecessary here to discuss the powerful resistance which such an attempt
would meet, not only from the Soviet Union, but from the whole international working
class, leading to the unloosing of revolutionary struggle and civil war above all in
Germany itself. just this prospect leads the imperialist and Fascist forces still to
hesitate. The final direction of Fascist war still lies in the womb of events. What is
already manifest is that the advance of Fascism has enormously accelerated the advance to
war on every side. 6. Fascism and the Women's Question. In no direction does the contrast
of the two worlds of Fascism, or Capitalism in extreme decay, and of Communism express
itself more clearly and sharply than in the status of women. The position of women has
often been referred to as one of the surest measures of the level of a civilisation. By
this measure Communism stands out as the first fully-developed civilisation in history,
where for the first time men and women participate with full equality' while Fascism is
revealed in its most undisguised reactionary character. The subjection of women has always
been inseparably bound up with class-society' and is one of the indispensable foundations
without which private-property society could not maintain itself. Capitalism has taken
over from the preceding period and adapted to its own purposes the social institutions
built on the subjection of women. While revolutionising and organising production and
trade on a gigantic scale throughout the world, it maintained, preserved and even
intensified in a still more limited and narrow form the primitive and anarchic basis of
the small-scale individual household, of the family and its ties, and sought to make
of this pre-capitalist institution its most powerful conservative pillar of support.* Only
on this basis could capitalism, with its complete individualist cash-nexus repudiation of
all social obligations and ties, nevertheless successfully maintain itself, and through
the institution

FASCISM AND THE WOMEN'S QUESTION 239

of the family throw off its own shoulders all social responsibility for the proper
conditions of motherhood, of the bringing up of children, of the support of the sick and
the aged, as well as the enormous volume of so-called "domestic labour"-all
socially necessary labour indispensable for the maintenance of society, but offering no
profit for capitalism to organise, and thrown off as unpaid labour on to the shoulders of
the working-class wives and mothers to be performed in the heaviest, dirtiest, most
unproductive and wasteful pre-machine conditions alongside highly organised large-scale
machine industry in the world outside. The consequent economic and social institutions,
involving the subjection of women and the forcible compulsion of the majority of women to
economic dependence on marriage as their sole means of livelihood, are bound up with the
existence of private-property society, and can only be ended with communist social
Organisation. Nevertheless, capitalism in its progressive phase performed also a
progressive role in relation to the position of women by offering for the first time the
possibilities and conditions of a new economic form of Organisation. Capitalism in its
search for ever more and cheaper supplies of labour-power draws increasingly millions of
women and young persons into industry, until to-day about one-third of the total labour
force in modern capitalist states consist of women and girls. Despite the brutal
conditions of exploitation, more heavy than for the male workers (an inequality defended
in the name of the sacred "family," on the basis of the illusory theory that the
average woman worker is supposed to have no "dependents"), yet this means that
millions of women have for the first time the beginnings of possibility of an independent
economic existence and active citizenship, in place of the compulsion of dependence on a
male earner as their sole possibility of livelihood and existence Marx discerned at an
early stage the significance of this process: However terrible and disgusting the
dissolution under the capitalist system of the old family ties may appear, nevertheless,
modern industry, by assigning as it does an important part in the process of production,
outside the domestic sphere, to women, to young persons and to children of both sexes,
creates a new economical foundation for a higher form of the family and of the relation
between the sexes. (Marx, Capital, 1., Ch. 15, para. 9.) The realisation of this
possibility of emancipation, for which

240 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

capitalism has thus laid the preliminary conditions, depends on the advance to a
Communist society: since the drawing of women into industry, so long as the old property
conditions and burden of the individual household remain unreplaced by social
organisation, only in fact adds to the burden of women instead of liberating them. Only by
the full introduction of women into equal partnership in social production, with the
consequent necessary equal education and training, and the destruction of the old wasteful
unorganised domestic economy inseparably connected with the private property system, can
the old position of the economic dependence of women be ended, and their equality and
freedom be realised, not only in form, but in living reality. This standpoint was
expressed by Engels in his wellknown declaration in the Origin of the Family: The
emancipation of women and their equality with men are impossible, and remain so as long as
women are excluded from social production and restricted to domestic labour. The
emancipation of women becomes feasible only then when women are enabled to take part
extensively in social production. The dependence of the solution of the women's question
upon the realisation of a Communist society was constantly emphasised by Lenin: The full
liberation of woman and her real equality with man requires a communist economy, a common
social organisation of production and consumption and the participation of woman in
general production. Only through this will woman take the same place in society as man.
(Lenin, Speech to Moscow Conference of Working Women.) The Soviet Union illustrates the
advance towards this position, where for the first time in the world's history the real
equality of women is being built up and established among all the peoples in its
territory. But capitalism in the period of the general crisis begins to reverse the
engines and move in the opposite direction. It is no longer hunting for new reserves of
labour-power to exploit. On the contrary, it can no longer find employment for the
existing labour force. Hence the cry begins to be sounded increasingly, always from the
beginning voiced by the clericalreactionary forces, but now increasingly taken up by
modern capitalism as a whole, to drive women out of industry and thus assist to
"solve" unemployment by increasing the number of

FASCISM AND THE Women's QUESTION 241

dependents to be maintained on each wage (the process can be observed in England in the
operation of the Anomalies Act and of the barbarous Family Means Test). This cry is taken
up in its sharpest and most undisguised form by Fascism, here as in every sphere voicing
the most reactionary tendencies of capitalism in extreme decay. Back to the home! Back to
economic dependence on marriage as the sole career for women! Cut down women's education!
Expel women from employment and give the jobs to men I Back to pots and pans! Produce more
cannon-fodder for war! Back to kitchen slavery! This is the line of Fascism on the women's
question. Hitler writes: In the case of female education the main stress should be laid on
bodily training, and after that on development of character and last of all, on intellect.
But the one absolute aim of female education must be with a view to the future
mother.-(Mein Kampf, p. 163.) It may be noted that the new German Government
regulations for cutting down university education and establishing a rigidly limited
student quota for all forms of higher education (and that also dependent on political
"national reliability") restricts women to 10 per cent. of the quota of
15,000-i.e., only 1,500 women for the whole of Germany to be permitted in a given year to
proceed to any form of higher education, whether universities, technical colleges or other
institutions. In 1931 there were 19,700 women students in Germany: taking an average
three-year course as basis, representing an average preFascist annual entry of 6,000 to
7,000 women students, this represents a cut by Fascism of women's higher education by
75-80 per cent.* *The drastic cutting down of university education, previously the pride
and greatest strength of German civilisation, is a typical expression of the general
cultural reaction of Fascism, equally illustrated in the burning of the books, etc. The
Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian reported in the beginning of 1934:
"Of the total number of matriculated students in the whole of Germany only 15,000 are
to be allowed to enter universities, technical colleges or other institutes of higher
education in the coming year. . . . Some 23,000 matriculated students will be unable to
proceed to higher education in consequence of the new regulations." At the same time
the Soviet Union educational authorities were reporting that the total number of
university and technical college students in the Soviet Union in 1933 was 415,000 as
against 203,000 in 1926-7, and 130,000 under Tsarism. In the face of these facts even the
dullest should be able to see that Communism, with its basis in science, is bound to
conquer the world, while Fascism, with its denial of science, is doomed to decay and
death.

242 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Spengler writes in his Years of Decision: Let German women breed warrior men and take
pleasure in breeding them. Woman is to be neither comrade, nor beloved, but only mother.
The American observer, Calvin B. Hoover, reports the Nazi attitude to the women's
question: The attitude of the National Socialists towards women is an integral part of
their belief in the desirability of a return to a system of life and morals characteristic
of an agricultural rather than an industrial society. The Party is determined that the
place of women shall once more be in the home. . . . In a word, the National Socialist
conception of women in the scheme of things is that they should bear many strong sons to
serve the State in peace and war. (Calvin B. Hoover, Germany Enters the Third Reich, p.
165.) It is an error to suppose that the reactionary Fascist attitude to women is simply a
reflection of a religious-reactionary outlook and yearnings for a pre-industrial type of
civilisation. The fact that the policy of minute bonuses (not in cash, but in orders
on the large shops, and repayable) for marriage, on the condition that the woman passes
out of industry, and the violent propaganda for more births, are accompanied at the same
time by the policy of wholesale sterilisation of the alleged unfit or mentally weak (i.e.,
of those likely to produce offspring unfit for military service or of those politically
unreliable), this latter practice being extremely offensive to traditional religious
sentiment, is sufficient evidence that the policy as a whole is not simply the policy of
religious-reactionary romanticism, but the conscious reactionary policy of modern
capitalism in its most extreme decay. Modern capitalism, while freely exploiting women in
industry at sweated rates so far as it has use for their labour, kicks the remainder out
of industry whom it cannot employ, bidding them become dependent on male wage-earners and
thus save its total bill for wages or unemployment relief, and at the same time calls on
them to perform their service in producing plenty of recruits for the increasing needs of
the slaughterhouses of imperialist war. This is the viewpoint of modern capitalism in
extreme decay, or Fascism, on the role of women. In this key question of the role of
women, as in its attitude to culture, or in its use of torture and re-introduction of
barbaric beheadings, Fascism reveals typically its degraded social, political and cultural
level.

FASCISM, developing since little over a decade, has no long past behind it, and in all
probability-from the very nature of its reactionary role, from its violent inner
contradictions, and from the whole character of its desperate attempt to throw up a darn
against the advancing social revolution-is likely to have no long future before it.
Fascism is likely to be remembered only as an episode in the long-drawn class-war
advancing to the final victory of the socialist revolution. But if Fascism were able to
have the opportunity to continue over a longer period, were able to maintain its power and
to dominate, as it dreams, a whole epoch of social history, then it is evident from the
whole foregoing analysis what its historical role would be, and what kind of society it
would produce. The society of a "stabilised Fascism"-if such a contradiction in
terms can be imagined, if, that is, for the sake of analysis we try to imagine the
possibility of such a society and ignore for the moment the inner dialectics of break-up
and revolutionary upsurge which would make such a stabilisation impossiblewould be a
society of organised decay. The essence of Fascism is the endeavour violently to suppress
and overcome the ever-growing contradictions of capitalist society. As Goering stated in a
speech to the Pomeranian Landbund on March 17, 1933: The regime of national concentration
will with iron fist bring the opposing interests of the different strata of society into
that harmony which is so essential to the prosperity of the German people. Forcible
("iron fist") suppression of the "opposing interests of the different
strata of society" into "harmony," that is to say, in short,
"iron-fist harmony"-that is the essence of Fascism. But what does this involve?
For in fact just the contradictions and consequent conflicts are the mainspring and
driving force of social development in class-society, that is to say, until 243 244
FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

society becomes a true collective by the liquidation of classes. Until then , the path
of class-conflict is the path of social development. To attempt on the one band to
maintain the contradictions -unresolved, and on the other to suppress forcibly their
expression, would mean, if successful, that society would cease to develop and would pass,
on the most favourable hypothesis, to a Byzantine or Old-Chinese hieratic ossification.
But such a society requires in fact an entirely different economy from modern capitalism.
And to this outcome the deepest inner tendencies of Fascism--despite the fact that it is
to-day used in practice as the instrument of finance-capital-would, if given free play,
increasingly develop. Just by its attempt to suppress forcibly, in place of resolving, the
contradictions of modern society, Fascism reveals most profoundly its reactionary role.
For by this it strangles social development. First, Fascism seeks to suppress the class
struggle, not by the abolition of classes, but by the violent permanent subjection of the
exploited class to the exploiters and crushing of all resistance. This means, even if it
could be successful, a condition of permanent inner war within society, with consequent
extreme waste of social forces and increasing destruction of all possibility of collective
achievement. Its stabilisation would mean the replacement of liberal capitalism by a caste
or statutory servile system. As the nineteenth-century liberal capitalist system of formal
"free contract" increasingly disappears under modern conditions of large-scale
industry, its breakdown raises ever more sharply the two alternatives: either Socialism,
or the common ownership of the means of production and common obligation of all citizens
to labour and sharing of the fruits; or the Servile State (State Capitalism), that is, the
statutory compulsion and regulation of the labour of the wageearning class for the profit
of the property-owning class under a general framework of State control, with the
abolition of the right to strike. The Fascist State represents the second alternative,
that is, the Servile State. Second, Fascism seeks to suppress the contradictions and
conflicts of capitalist economy brought about by the advance of technique and the
development of mass-production and productive power. As before, it seeks, not to resolve
the contradictions in the higher form of socialisation of the

THE ESSENCE OF FASCISM--ORGANISATION OF SOCIAL DECAY 245

already social forms of production, but to suppress them by artificially restricting
the productive forces, throttling down production to fixed limits suitable to monopolist
capital, preventing new development, clamping on state bureaucratic control, and even,
inextreme cases, artificially maintaining obsolete smallproduction forms, restricting
machine-production and encouraging hand-labour (see Chapter 111, sections 1 and 2 for
examples of this process). The reactionary, stagnating tendencies of monopoly capitalism
receive their extreme expression in Fascism. Third, Fascism seeks to suppress the
contradictions of international capitalist development, that is, the contradictions
between the single unified world market and international specialisation of production, on
the one hand, and the competing monopolist groups and state complexes, on the other, by
forcibly shattering the basis of international economy and organising the retreat towards
the limited closed-in isolationist economic basis-the line of so-called "national
self-sufficiency" or "autarchy." This openly retrograde line means the
cutting down of international trade and communications, the raising of the costs of
production, the lowering of the standard of living, and the increasing
"Balkanisation" of the capitalist world. Where would this whole line-if we
continue for the purpose of our analysis to ignore the dialectics of struggle and
development which would make its realisation impossible, and imagine a successful and
increasing straight-line realisation of the tendencies of Fascism-lead the modern
capitalist world in the twentieth century? It is evident that this line would be a line of
increasing stagnation and decay leading more and more away from the complex inter-
dependent modern forms towards more primitive forms, and finally to barbarism. The first
stage of this process of the working out of Fascism would be the stage of an elaborately
bureaucratic and nonprogressive state capitalism-the bureaucratic regulation and
restriction of the entire economy, while still maintaining capitalist forms. But while the
capitalist forms would still be maintained, and surplus-value would continue to be
extracted, the old free play of capitalist production and circulation could no longer be
permitted. Accumulation and expansion would have to be strictly controlled, since the
normal

246 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

working of the capitalist process would otherwise rapidly burst the bonds of the
attempted regulation and harmony. The capitalist class would tend to become a permanently
fixed class or caste, with no room for new accessions to its ranks. The attempt would
develop, by means of control of investments and similar measures, to stabilise on a basis
approximating to simple reproduction of capital, and to avoid or minimise the inherent
disturbances of expanded reproduction. This would mean a static non-progressive tendency,
with regulated quotas of production, prices, levels of wages and profits. New inventions
would be strictly regulated and checked, as is to-day widely recommended. Science and
education would be discouraged, save so far as is indispensable for military purposes.
This stagnating, non-progressive parasitic character of monopoly capitalism has already
been observed since the beginning of the imperialist era. Lenin, in his analysis of
imperialism as the "Decay of Capitalism," sharply brings out this tendency: Like
all monopoly, this capitalist monopoly infallibly gives rise to a tendency to stagnation
and decay. In proportion as the monopoly prices become fixed, even though it be
temporarily, so the stimulus to all progress tends to disappear; and so also arises the
economic possibility of slowing down technical progress.

(Lenin, Imperialism, Ch. 8.)

The post-war development of capitalism in the two decades since this was written, and
especially the development of state capitalism and of Fascism, has enormously carried
forward this process. The "petrifaction" of modern capitalist industry under an
"anonymous industrial bureaucracy" has been noted as an increasing tendency by
the German economic historian, Schmalenbach: There is no longer a certain assurance that
capable, competent men will make good. I am certainly not so sentimental as to believe
that in the old private industry a capable man was assured of advancement under all
circumstances. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that in the new type of fettered industry
the assurance is considerably less. In these vast monopoly concerns the successful man is
much more firmly seated in the saddle than he ever could formerly be under the system of
private industry. Under free competition he had to earn his position continually. . . .
The chiefs of industry, at one time very vigorous leaders in the

THE ESSENCE OF FASCISM --- ORGANISATION OF SOCIAL DECAY 247

period of struggle and growth, are petrifying to Heads of Departments, to Chiefs of
Industrial Boards, and, as industry turns from the vertical to the horizontal, they change
from creative minds to managers of capital and price officials. But this is only the
beginning of the process. This tendency to petrifaction, to a static non-progressive
condition, which is the underlying tendency of all the dreams of "Planned
Capitalism," is only the first stage. For in fact the nonprogressive tendency
inevitably works itself out in a tendency to a decline, to a descent towards a lower
technical and economic level. The next stage, the first signs of which can already be
discerned, becomes the gradual break-up of the large combinations, the break-up of
large-scale organisation, the reversion to more limited economic units. In place of the
internationalisation. of economy develops the localised "selfsufficient economic
unit." In place of the international specialisation of production develops scattered
production on a smaller scale for each unit, and the consequent decline of massproduction.
The most advanced large-production plants, with their heavy overhead running costs and
needs of an enormous worldwide market, begin to be found "uneconomic" in
contrast to relatively more backward smaller plants. So begins the downward movement (if
the proletariat does not conquer, if the advance to the necessary next stage of the world
socialist order is not achieved), from the high-water mark of capitalist technique in the
first quarter of the twentieth century to lower and more primitive forms. Such is the
economic basis of the "decline to the Dark Ages," which all can see
ideologically expressed in Fascism. Scott Nearing in his pamphlet on "Fascism"
has given a vivid imaginative picture of this process. He writes: The search for a
self-sufficient economic unit will lead the Fascists, as it led those of their
predecessors who helped to liquidate the Roman Empire, to a splitting up of economy units
until they reach the village, the manor and the local market town. Village economy is
almost self-sufficient. . . . Short of this level, however, there is no unit which can
pretend to economic self-sufficiency. The search for an area in which economic
self-sufficiency is workable leads straight back to such forms of village economy as can
be found to-day in portions of Central Europe, India and China. Autarchy implies the
abandonment of national specialisation in production. . . . Mass-production will be
drastically restricted.

248 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

The abandonment of national specialisation will go hand in hand with the decline of
international trade. In proportion as each community becomes self-sufficient, it will
cease to trade with its neighbours. Nation will cease to trade with nation; district with
district; village with village, until a stage is reached like that of the Middle Ages, at
which the trade of the world can be carried on the backs of camels, pack-horses and human
beings, or in a few small merchant vessels. Each village, manor, market town, trader and
merchant will be compelled to provide for his own self-defence and protect his own
property. Localism and individualism will have once again replaced the efforts at social
co-ordination. . . . Automatic machinery will be abandoned with the abandonment of
mass-production. The village will rely on hand-agriculture and hand- crafts. Railroads
will disappear. Roads will be tracks through the mud. Automobiles will vanish. Bridges
will be destroyed in the course of the constantly recurring wars and military expeditions
and forays. Pack animals defended by private guards will ford the streams and make their
way single-file over narrow winding tracks. If this picture seems fantastic to a modern
American or European, let him compare Roman imperial economy in 50 A.D. with the economy
of the same territory in 650 A.D. Mass wage-labour will disappear with the disappearance
of specialised mass-production. The modern proletariat will be eliminated by war, disease,
famine and the flight back to the land, quite as effectively as the proletariat and the
slave masses of Imperial Rome were eliminated by the same means. . . . The standard of
living will be reduced to that of the villagers in present-day Mexico, China, Austria or
Rumania, except that the villagers will no longer be able to secure the many trinkets,
tools and utensils that now come to them from the centres of specialised industrial
production. Each year they will sow their crops; will wait for the rain, and when the rain
fails them, will die like flies of the resultant famine. Each year they will reap their
harvests; hide them away from roaming bands of brigands and unemployed soldiers; huddle
about their meagre fires, and use their spare time in making and repairing household tools
and utensils. (Scott Nearing, Fascism, PP. 48-51

This picture is an imaginative picture of a hypothetical process- deliberately leaving
out of account the dialectics of the proletarian class struggle which will defeat its
realisation. But -it is essentially a correct picture of what would happen if the
innermost tendencies of Fascist economics and politics were worked out to their final
conclusion. It is essentially a correct picture of the only final alternative to the
socialist revolution.

THE ESSENCE OF FASCISM-ORGANISATION OF SOCIAL DECAY 249

Those who hesitate at the issue of the socialist revolution will do well to ponder
closely this inevitable final alternative which they are thereby choosing. The sense of
the decline of civilisation, the overpowering atmosphere of pessimism, even though
accompanied by formal expressions of hope of revival through Fascism, overwhelmingly
dominates all Fascist expression, and betrays its innermost essence. We have no belief in
programmes or plans, in saints or apostles. Above all, we have no belief in happiness, in
salvation or in the promised land.- (Mussolini, Popolo d'Italia, January 1, 1922.) Fascism
denies the materialist conception of happiness as a possibility.- (Mussolini, The
Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism.) In the gloom of to-day and the darkness of
to-morrow the only faith that remains to us individualists destined to die is the at
present absurd but ever-consoling religion of anarchy. (Popolo d'Italia, April 6, 1920.)

Hopeless we may be, yet we have the hope of doomed men. (Blackshirt, September 16-22,
1933.)

Fully aware of the decline of cultures and civilisations before us, we still demand the
right of every proud warrior-to fight for a cause though that cause seem lost. (Fascist
Week, January .12-18, 1934.)

"But it is not a lost cause." Such is the hasty addition appended, without
attempt at grounds other than a mystic faith, to the last quotation, to save appearances
and justify the Fascist fight. But the addition rather confirms than changes the basic
outlook revealed. The basic tone and outlook remains that of a dying civilisation fighting
against odds to continue defiantly in the face of all the evidence of the doom of history
proclaimed against it. Characteristic of this whole outlook is the dominating influence of
Spengler on Fascism. The favourite, the most quoted and the dominating philosopher and
teacher of the Fascist "theorists" remains Spengler, the shallow
journalistic-smatterer philosopher of the inevitability of decline and of the collapse of
civilisation, even though his conclusions are so downright black and hopeless in their
pessimism that they are compelled formally to deny them, while accepting his premises. The
recent official book of British Fascism (Drennan, B.U.F.:

250 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism) fills its pages with endless excerpts from
Spengler, declaring: Spengler's interpretation of world history is a colossal monument to
the European mind. . . . His interpretation of past history remains valid, and constitutes
a base from which modern man may begin to interpret his own present and to modify his own
future. What is the teaching of this "colossal" prophet? He writes: Only
dreamers believe that there is a way out. Optimism is cowardice. We are born into this
time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty
is to hold on the last position, without hope, without rescue. . . . The honourable end is
the one thing that cannot be taken from a man.

What is the comment of The Fascist Week on this commonplace maudlin posturing of all
dying civilisations?

His words are a magnificent example of dauntless nobility in the face of inevitable
annihilation.- (Fascist Week, january12-i8,1934.)

The Fascist organ thereafter endeavours to plead that perhaps man may be "in some
ways free of natural laws" and thus escape the doom. But even the final conclusion of
the Fascist organ runs:

For those who make the choice, the very least of their destinies will be an honourable
end.

In the same way the official book on Mosley and British Fascism, already quoted,
glories in the breakdown of civilisation and the return to the primitive:

Out of the night of history, old shadows are appearing which menace their complacency.
. . . Sir Herbert Samuel, a Liberal of singular perspicacity, believes that Europe is
returning to the conditions of the twelfth century. Professor Laski wails against these
new men who have "no inhibitions ... . . .

The figure of the leader . . . comes out into the stark dayin the grim serenity of
Mussolini, in the harsh force of Hitler. And behind them stride the eternal
condottieri-the gallant, vivid Balbo, the ruthless Goering (PP. 42-3).

(Drennan, B.U.F.: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism.)

With this typical glorification of the "condottieri," of the return of the
brigand Balbo and the gorilla Goering, of the law of the

THE ESSENCE OF FASCISM--ORGANISATION OF SOCIAL DECAY 2 51

jungle, we may leave the Fascists to their Neronian pleasures, until such time as the
strong hand of the proletarian dictatorship shall end their blood-orgies and establish
civilised order and progress throughout the world. What speaks here through the mouth of
the Fascists is nothing but the typical decadent parasitic glorification of blood and the
cave-man (already visible in its first signs in the invalids Nietzsche, Carlyle and other
sick types, or later represented in the Ethel M. Dells and Hemingways of literature).
Fascism in its ideology is nothing but the continuation of fin-de- siecle decadence into
its necessary outcome in blood-lust and barbarism. All this is only the deathrattle of the
dying bourgeois civilisation. Against all this pessimism, decline, decay and filth, tragic
destinies, self -heroisings, idolisation of death, returns to the primitive, mysticism,
spiritualism and corruption, the revolutionary proletarian movement of Communism, of
Marxism, the heir of the future, proclaims its unshakable certainty and confidence in
life, in science, in the power of science, in the possibility of happiness, proclaims its
unconquerable optimism for the whole future of humanity, and in this sign, armed with the
weapons of scientific understanding, of dialectical materialism, of Marxism, will conquer
and sweep from the earth the dregs of disease and decay which find their expression in
Fascism.

CHAPTER XI Page 252 TENDENCIES TO FASCISM IN WESTERN EUROPE
AND AMERICA

UNTIL the last few years Liberalism and Social Democracy denied the possibility of
Fascism in the "civilised" countries of Western Europe and America. As early as
1922, immediately after the victory of Fascism in Italy, while current discussion still
treated this as an "Italian" phenomenon, the Communist International at its
Fourth Congress gave the warning for every country: The menace of Fascism lurks to-day in
many countries-in Czecho-Slovakia, in Hungary, in nearly all the Balkan countries, in
Poland, in Germany (Bavaria), in Austria and America, and even in countries like Norway.
Fascism in one form or another is not altogether impossible even in countries like France
and England. But even as late as 1928 the Second International still clung to its theory
of "the two Europes" and of "dictatorship" as only possible in
"backward" countries. Vandervelde, Chairman of the Second International,
declared at its Brussels Congress in 1928: A great captain of industry recently said to
us: "If without taking into account political frontiers you trace an imaginary line
from Kovno to Bilbao, passing through Cracow and Florence, you will find before you two
Europes-the one in which horse-power dominates, the other where it is the living horse,
the one where there are parliaments, the other where there are dictators." It is in
reality exclusively in the latter economically and politically backward Europe that
dictatorships more or less brutal, more or less hypocritical, abound, whether veiled or no
by a sham national representation. Three years later, in 1931, the Second International
had to admit the incorrectness of this theory. In its report to the Vienna Congress in
1931 the Executive declared: Fascism has overstepped the limits which but a few years
previously appeared to be drawn for it by the development of modern technique. Whereas it
was believed at that time that Fascism was confined to those countries in which
"instead of horse-power the

TENDENCIES TO FASCISM IN WESTERN EUROPE AND AMERICA 253

living horse dominates," the Fascist danger has now also penetrated to countries
in which industry is highly developed, The three further years since 1931 have seen the
establishment of complete Fascist dictatorships in Germany and Austria, the growth of
influentially supported Fascist movements in France and England, the development of the
Spanish Revolution to the point of extreme menace of Fascism,* and the establishment of
the semi-Fascist Roosevelt emergency regime. It is now clear to all that the theory of
Fascism as a phenomenon only of "backward" "agrarian" countries is
false, and that the Communist analysis of Fascism as the characteristic instrument of
finance-capital which can be brought into play in the most highly developed industrial
countries when the stage of the crisis and of the class struggle requires it, has been
proved correct by facts. Events daily and hourly reinforce the truth that the
international working class throughout the world, in every capitalist country, has to
fight the menace of Fascism. * The question of Spain, which is basically different in type
from the leading Western Imperialist countries, is not further dealt with in this chapter;
any treatment would require a detailed separate analysis of the whole development of the
Spanish Revolution since 193 1, its strangling by the lef t-democratic Liberal-Socialist
bloc at the time of the height of the mass revolutionary wave, and the consequent passing
of power to the Right and rapid growth of Fascism, approaching the prospect of an intense
struggle of Fascism and the mass movement in the coming period. (Since the publication of
the first edition of this book, these issues have come to a head in the civil war which
broke out in Spain in October, 1934.) The corresponding revision of Fascist expression,
from the time when Mussolini declared that "Fascism is not an article for
export" to the time when Mussolini declared (1930) that Fascism is
"universal" and looks forward to "a Fascist Europe," has accompanied,
but has not caused, this development. Apart from the interchanges between Fascist
movements, the attempts of Fascism at rudimentary forms of international propaganda are
still-inevitably from the very nature of Fascism-feeble so far. A journal Antieuropa is
issued from Rome with the subtitle "Rassegna del l'espansione fascista nel
mondo" ("Review of fascist expansion throughout the world"), and, while
mainly Italian, has printed contributions from Hitler, Mosley and others; there is also
the similar journal Ottobre. The wording of the official announcement of Antieuropa (issue
of September 30, T9331 containing article of Mosley on "Modern Dictatorship and
British History") is worth reproducing as a curiosity: "Our organ is really the
Worldcentrum of fascist intelligence, furthers extension, illustrates relationship and
controls the fascist-intelligence development in the world. Means of
propaganda-Antieuropa, monthly review. Ottobre-paper of the Universal Fascism. Documentate
yourselves by means of Nuova Europa." The striking English of this effusion is
sufficiently revealing of the very weak "international" basis of this attempt of
Italian Fascism to figure as a "Worldcentrum."

254 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

1. The Basis for Fascism in Britain, the United States and France. In 18go William
Morris, in his penetrating imaginative anticipation of the process of the social
revolution in Britain, given in his "News from Nowhere" (Ch. XVII, How the
Change Came) wrote: Whatever the Government might do, a great part of the upper and middle
classes were determined to set on foot a counter-revolution: for the Communism which now
loomed ahead seemed quite unendurable to them. Bands of young men, like the marauders in
the Great Strike of whom I told you just now, armed themselves and drilled, and began on
any opportunity or pretence to skirmish with the people in the streets. The Government
neither helped them, nor put them down, but stood by, hoping that something might come of
it. These "Friends of Order," as they were called, had some successes at first,
and grew bolder; they got many officers of the regular army to help them, and by that
means laid hold of munitions of war of all kinds. . . . A sort of irregular war was
carried on with varied success all over the country; and at last the Government, which at
first pretended to ignore the struggle, or treat it as mere rioting, definitely declared
for "the Friends of Order." The poet of late nineteenth century Britain-whose
insight was strengthened above his contemporaries of literature by his acceptance of the
standpoint of revolutionary Marxism and direct participation in the mass struggle-here
comes remarkably close to a forecast of Fascism. This passage is of interest, not only as
one of the earliest direct anticipations of the specific character of Fascism (not merely
of counter-revolution in general) in revolutionary socialist literature, but also
precisely because it sprang from observation of British conditions and experience of the
struggle in Britain. While the blind liberals and reformists three decades later, with
facts staring them in the face, were still to be proclaiming Fascism "alien" and
"unthinkable" in Britain, it was precisely the observation of British conditions
that first awoke in a keen mind, which had drawn nourishment from Marxism, one of the
earliest direct anticipations of Fascism. The illusion of the "alien" character
of Fascism in the "democratic" countries of Western Europe and America is
commonly presented as based on the supposed peculiarities and uniqueness of the
"national character" and "institutions" in these countries.
"Britain" (or alternatively, according to

BASIS FOR FASCISM 255

the speaker, "the United States," or "France") "will never
tolerate Fascism; it is foreign to our whole traditions and outlook." The same myth
was also current in Germany, where up to the last the formula that "Germany is not
Italy" was unweariedly repeated. What underlies the conception of the
"different" character of Western Europe and America and the undoubted fact of
the deeper rooting of parliamentary-democratic institutions in these countries? In reality
this situation, and the ideology accompanying it, is only the reflection of the wealthier,
more powerful, privileged situation of Western imperialism with its vast colonial
possessions and world domination. The earlier accession to power of the bourgeoisie in
these countries brought parliamentary institutions, the instrument of their fight against
feudalism, earlier to the front; and these parliamentary institutions continued to be
maintained, after the fight against feudalism was fully completed and the serious meaning
had fully gone out of them, for the deception of the working class and the camouflage of
the real rule of the narrowing plutocracy. The strength and resources of capitalism in
these metropolitan countries made it possible to pursue a liberal policy of concessions to
the workers, and thus to draw the working class in the wake of capitalism and hinder the
growth of independent class consciousness. Hence the long domination of liberal and social
reformist politics in the working class in Britain, France and the United States right
into the twentieth century, and the slow growth of class-conscious Socialism, in contrast
to Central and Eastern Europe. And hence the solid basis for the longer successful
maintenance of parliamentary institutions of deception in these countries, when these same
institutions, transferred to other countries, could find little root. The "democratic
freedoms" of Western imperialism have been built on the foundation of colonial
slavery; as was strikingly demonstrated when the Labour Government, the champion of
"democracy," brought in a reign of terror to maintain despotism in India and
jailed sixty thousand for the crime of asking for democratic rights. But just this basis
of parliamentary-democratic institutions in the Western imperialist countries is
increasingly undermined by the crisis of capitalism. The monopoly of the world market
breaks down; the colonies revolt; the world tribute diminishes;

256 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the bourgeoisie in the metropolitan countries is compelled, in place of concessions and
reforms, to withdraw those already granted and launch ever-increasing attacks on the
workers. But this inevitably brings a new intensity of the class struggle in these
countries and a widening revolutionary awakening of the working class. For a period the
apparatus of Labourism still serves to canalise the discontent of the workers and keep
them attached to capitalism; but Labourism is compelled by the crisis increasingly to
expose itself and assist the capitalist offensive against the workers; and disillusionment
grows. As this situation develops, the bourgeoisie is compelled to look to new forms to
maintain its rule. The movement of bourgeois policy begins to turn away from the exhausted
and discredited parliamentarism towards open dictatorship, towards Fascism. This movement,
after developing first in the more povertystricken and backward countries, reaches its
first major imperialist state in Germany, the Power which has been stripped of its
colonies and weakened in its world imperialist position , and only finally begins to
develop in the dominant imperialist Powers, Britain, France and the United States, and
their satellites (Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland). But so soon as this
situation develops, it becomes clear that Fascism, so far from being alien to the Western
imperialist states, has an extremely strong potential basis in their whole social,
economic and political structure. What are the general conditions favouring the growth of
Fascism? They maybe briefly enumerated: (I ) intensification of the economic crisis and of
the class struggle; (2) widespread disillusionment with parliamentarism; (3) the existence
of a wide petit-bourgeoisie, intermediate strata, slum proletariat, and sections of the
workers under capitalist influence; (4) the absence of an independent class- conscious
leadership of the main body of the working class. Are these conditions present in Britain,
France and the United States? The answer must be given that they are all strongly present.
If we take Britain first, and ask the question whether there is a basis for Fascism in
Britain, a consideration of the social forces and structure in the country will show that
there is every basis. In the first place, there is a very large proportion of intermediate

BASIS FOR FASCISM 257

strata of the population, of petit-bourgeois elements with very narrow and easily
controlled political interests, and of a parasitic proletariat closely allied to their
masters and virtually unorganisable to the working-class movement. This proportion is
larger in Britain than in other countries. The 1921 census showed ten millions of the
population engaged in direct productive industries and transport, and seven millions in
"services" of very varying degrees of productive value, often of no productive
value, but parasitic in character and tied up with the processes of exploitation. Of these
seven millions over four millions are classified under Commerce, Finance and Personal
Service. This classification, however, is to some extent misleading without further
analysis. More important is the proportion of salaried workers to wage workers. In 1924,
according to Bowley and Stamp (The National Income .1924, published in 192 7), the number
of salaried workers was 2.8 millions against 15.4 million wage earners, or 15 per cent. of
the employed population.* Further, of the wage-workers, some two-thirds are unorganised;
and these two-thirds are not an outside margin in all industries, but mainly represent the
workers outside the big productive industries. At the same time the Labour Party and trade
union leadership, by their denial of the class struggle and preaching of the
"community above classes," by their alliance with the employers (Mondism) and
capitalism, and by their ban on the united front, disorganize the independent class action
of the workers and pave the way for Fascism. An indication of the potential Fascist forces
is provided by the monster circulations, approaching two millions, of journals of the type
of the Daily Mail, circulating mainly among petitbourgeois elements, and in its whole
character since its inception a real forerunner of Fascism more than twenty years before
the name existed (since 1934 openly Fascist). If we turn to the policy and tactics of the
bourgeoisie in * It is noticeable that the proportions of the salariat have considerably
increased in the period of the imperialist decline. The 1907 Census of production
estimated the salaried at 7 per cent. and the wage-earners at 93 per cent. For 1911 Bowley
and Stamp (op. cit.) estimate the numbers at 1.6 millions and 15.6 millions respectively,
or over 9 per cent for the salariat. The 1924 figure gives over is per cent. The increase
between 1911 and 1024 is by more than 1.1 million or 68 per cent. In the same period,
according to this estimate, the number of wage-earners decreased by 250,000.

258 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Britain, it is obvious that these not only do not exclude Fascism, but are on the
contrary most closely prepared and adapted for Fascism by all the developments of the
imperialist period. On the one hand the State machine-with the famous "unwritten
Constitution" which can be turned in any direction desired at a moment's notice to
suit the emergency needs of the bourgeois dictatorship-is far more exactly fitted than in
any democratic republic for all the purposes of intensified dictatorship and Fascism. On
the other hand, the British bourgeoisie is trained for generations on the basis of its
rule of India, Ireland and the colonial empire to methods of violence and despotic
domination, at the same time as on the basis of parliamentary and electioneering humbug in
Britain to the technique of mass-deception- the two together constituting the perfect
combination for Fascism. The words of the American Ambassador in London during the war
years, W. Page, a shrewd and admiring observer, on the technique of the Diehards may be
recalled: They call these old Tories "Diehards." It's a good name. They use
military power, social power, financial power, eloquence, learning, boundless impudence,
blackguardism--everything-to hold what they have; and they fight-fight like tigers, and
tire not. Or as Lloyd George (the "Liberal" founder of the "Black and
Tans") declared in a speech in 19 2 5: "Scratch a Conservative, and you will
find a Fascist." For those who are still chloroformed by the sedulously instilled
myths of law and order, it would be well to study a little the history of the British
bourgeoisie for the past three centuries, which in bloody violence could hardly be
equalled by any ruling class since the Roman Empire, as well as the action of this same
bourgeoisie as a ruling class in the Empire outside Britain to-day. They would speedily
learn the mailed fist basis which lies behind the velvet speeches of a Baldwin or a
MacDonald. It is sufficient to recall the technique of the Boer War jingo agitation, the
Ulster rebellion, the Amritsar massacre, the "Black and Tans" in Ireland, or the
Organisation for countering the General Strike, to see the full basis for Fascism. The
Ulster movement, with its open defiance of Parliament, Organisation of private armies, and
direct support by the Army chiefs, the Court and high society, and ignominious
capitulation

BASIS FOR FASCISM 259

of the Liberal Government, is of especial interest as an embryonic precursor of
Fascism. Lenin wrote of it at the time: The significance of this revolt of the landlords
against the "allpowerful" (as the Liberal blockheads, especially the Liberal
scholars, think and have said a million times) English Parliament is extraordinarily
great. March2l, 1914, will mark a world-historical turningpoint, when the noble landlords
of England, smashing the English Constitution and English law to atoms, gave an excellent
lesson in class struggle. . . . These aristocrats behaved like revolutionaries from the
Right, and by that tore up all conventions, tore down all the veils that prevented the
people from seeing the unpleasant, but undoubtedly real, class struggle. That was revealed
to all which was formerly concealed by the bourgeoisie and the Liberals (the Liberals are
hypocritical everywhere, but it is doubtful whether their hypocrisy goes to such lengths
and to such refinement as in England). Everybody realised that the conspiracy to break the
will of Parliament had been long prepared. Real class-rule has always been and still lies
outside of Parliament. . . . And the petit-bourgeois Liberals of England, and their
speeches about reforms and about the power of Parliament, with which they lull the
workers, proved to be in fact frauds, straw men put up in order to fool the people, who
were quickly torn down by the aristocracy with power in their hands, (Lenin, The
Constitutional Crisis in England, 1914.) Indeed the Fascists in Britain to-day directly
look to the Ulster movement as their predecessor: Just before the war the widespread
movement directed against Parliament, in sympathy with the Ulster loyalists, assumed
formidable proportions within two years of its initiation. That movement, psychologically
limited as it was, and directed only to the safeguarding of certain limited objectives,
would-had not the war intervened-have developed into a formidable revolt against the whole
theory and system of Democracy in Britain. The Ulster movement was in fact the first
Fascist movemen(W. E. D. Allen, Fascism in Relation to British History and Character,
B.U.F., 1933.) If we turn to the United States, an examination of the social composition
of the population would also show the basis for Fascism. Of the 49 million occupied
persons returned in the census of 1930, 19 millions were classified under manufacturing
industry, mining and transport, 10 millions under agriculture,

260 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

6 millions under trade, 3 millions under the professions, 4 millions under clerical
occupations, and 5 millions under domestic and personal service. In addition to the urban
petit-bourgeoisie and very wide expansion of the salariat, salesmen , etc., the farming
population, with some six million separate farms, constitutes roughly one quarter of the
total population. Extreme economic pressure has powerfully radicalised all the poorer
farmers; but until a strong proletarian leadership succeeds to establish the
alliance-all-powerful, once it is achieved-of the industrial workers and small farmers,
there is every danger of demagogic Fascist movements winning their hold here. At the same
time, the Organisation of the industrial workers is weak. Trade union organisation, even
after the increases accompanying the present crisis and the Roosevelt Codes (which have
mainly in fact encouraged company unions the initial basis for Fascist Organisation in
industry), only reaches about one-fifth of the workers; it is mainly confined to the
privileged, skilled workers on a craft basis, leaving out the unskilled workers; and,
apart from railroads and to some extent mining, has won little hold yet in the basic
productive industries. The class-collaboration policy of the American Federation of Labour
leadership is more open and extreme than in Europe, and still so far opposes any form of
political party of the workers, although the development of the crisis may compel a change
in this respect. The reformist labour leaders have taken the role of direct allies and
lieutenants of the Roosevelt emergency regime. Here again, therefore, a strong social
basis exists for the development of full Fascism, if this should become necessary to the
bourgeoisie. The traditional tactics and methods of domination of the American bourgeoisie
are equally adapted to Fascism, in proportion as occasion arises. If they have not had the
same experience as the British bourgeoisie in the domination of colonial peoples, save
more recently and on a smaller scale, they have had plenty of experience in their own
domain in the suppression of the twelve million Negroes within the United States and of
the heavily exploited immigrant populations. The combination of violence, lawlessness and
corruption for the maintenance of capitalist domination has reached classic heights in the
United States. It is only necessary to recall the Chicago hangings, Homestead or Dearborn,
Sacco-Vanzetti

BASIS FOR FASCISM 261

or Scottsboro, the exploits of the Pinkerton gangs, the methods in the coalmining and
steel areas, the private armies of the employers, the judicial murders, the lynchings and
gangsters, the Anti-Red drive of the Department of justice after the war, or the waves of
sudden expansion of the Ku Klux Klan and similar organisations, to see the plentiful basis
for Fascism in American bourgeois traditions. If Britain and the United States are both
classic lands of semi- Fascist methods of bourgeois domination long before Fascism, France
has long been considered the classic land of "pure democracy." Yet in fact just
the overwhelming petitbourgeois social basis (preponderant small industry and peasantry,
with a layer of finance-capital at the top, but relatively less developed large industry
or foreign trade) which underlay the "pure democracy" of formal social-radical
republicanism and actual unlimited corruption and rule of the financial cliques, to-day,
when the new stage develops, becomes equally the basis for Fascism. Not only is the
majority of the population in France still rural (the proportion of the population in
towns of over 5,000 inhabitants was 44 per cent. in 1928, as against 54 Per cent. in
Germany, 58 per cent. in the United States and 79 per cent. in Britain), but the
preponderance of petty industry in the industrial field is still extreme. According to an
investigation of de Ville-Chabrolle on the basis of official statistics (see Economist,
September 30, 1933), out of a total of 6,167,647 establishments in 1926, 5,983,075
consisted of five persons or less (2,981,521 single-handed concerns). Out Of 17.8 million
occupied persons, 11.8 millions were occupied in concerns of five persons or less, and
only 1.5 million workers were employed in concerns of over Soo workers, that is, in
large-scale industry. Trade union organisation, reaching to a few hundred thousands in
each of the two rival Confederations, is extremely weak, although militant traditions and
class-consciousness are strongly developed in the big industrial centres. The
parliamentary republic has maintained a sometimes precarious hold for two generations; but
the open reactionary forces which seek to change the regime increase in strength. The
experiences of Boulangism, of the anti-Dreyfus agitation, or of the Action Francaise
movement have shown the ground that there is for Fascist agitation; and the offensive of
the recent

262 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Fascist demonstrations of the beginning of 1934, leading to the hasty withdrawal of the
"Left" Government and instalment of a Government of National Concentration, have
shown how rapidly the advance to Fascism may develop in France. All this is not to argue
that Fascism must necessarily develop and conquer in these Western countries. Its success
or failure, as in every country, depends on the degree of preparedness and militant
resistance of the proletariat. But it is folly to be blind to the reality of the danger,
or to the many favouring factors that Fascism can marshal to its side in precisely these
countries. Above all, it is worse than folly to place a blind confidence, as the liberal
and reformist leaders preach, in the "democratic institutions" of these
countries. The bourgeoisie will use any and every instrument of struggle as occasion
arises. It is for the working class and its allies to be prepared for the fight in front.
2. The Significance of the National Government in Britain. The development of the world
economic crisis has brought a sharp break in the political development in the countries of
Western Imperialism, and in so doing has brought the question of Fascism increasingly to
the front also in these countries. In England the break took place in the autumn of 1931
with the financial crisis and the establishment of the National Government. In the United
States the break took place in the spring of 1933 with the inauguration of the Roosevelt
regime amid extreme financial crisis and the establishment of emergency powers. In France,
where the effects of the economic crisis have operated more slowly, the break came with
the Paris revolutionary and counter-revolutionary demonstrations of February 1934, and the
formation of the Government of National Concentration under Doumergue. All these reveal a
common process of concentration of the bourgeois forces in the crisis, establishment of
intensified forms of dictatorship and emergency powers, diminution of the role of
parliamentarism, and, in general, advance to types of the pre- Fascist stage which
characterised the Bruning regime in Germany. What was the significance of the formation of
the National

SIGNIFICANCE OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IN BRITAIN 263

Government in Britain, and of the stage of the crisis which gave rise to it? In the
first place, it marked the heavy discrediting of the Labour Party. The Labour Government,
which bad been placed in office by eight million votes on a programme of promises of
socialism and of the solution of unemployment, had looked on impotently while unemployment
rose under its rule from 1.1 millions to 2.7 millions, and bad proved itself only the ally
of capitalist rationalisation against the workers. The hopes which had been preached
throughout the post-war period of the peaceful democratic Labour path to socialism as the
alternative to revolution, and which had won a steadily rising Labour vote from 2 millions
in 1918 to 8 millions in 1929, received a heavy blow. Disillusionment in the masses was
rising. But the Labour Party had in reality represented the safety-mechanism of bourgeois
rule in the post-war period, like Social Democracy in Germany, the social-conservative
force which, while seeming to voice the socialist aspirations of the masses, had served to
attach them through parliamentarism. to the bourgeois regime. This was now in danger of
collapsing and giving place to the rising process of revolutionisation. The bourgeoisie
was quick to sense the danger. Already in the spring of 1930 Lloyd George voiced the
menace to the traditional bourgeois institutions through the discrediting of the Labour
Party. Describing how the workers had originally put their hopes in the Liberal Party and
lost faith in it, he continued: Millions consequently threw in their lot with a new party.
To them this party was the party of the last hope. It is now rapidly becoming the party of
lost hope. Speakers and agents of all parties returning from the last by-election in a
great industrial constituency had the same tale to tell. It was one of the gloom and
despair which had fallen on this working class district owing to the failure of the
Government they had helped at the last General Election to put into power to bring any
amelioration into their conditions and prospects. If Labour fails this time, confidence in
parliamentary institutions will for a period disappear in myriads of loyal British homes
and hearts. (Lloyd George, article in the Daily Express, March 18, Y93o.) The bourgeoisie
manoeuvred to meet this critical situation. The step, previously only attempted in
wartime, was taken of

264 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

creating a Coalition Government from all the parties, the National Government, under
the nominal leadership of MacDonald and Snowden, and under the actual control of
Conservatism, to win anew the confidence of the masses under this new cover. The manoeuvre
succeeded for the moment, by playing on the very intensity of the disgust of the masses
with the Labour Government. The Labour vote fell for the first time since the war, by the
heavy fall of two millions. But this disillusionment did not go to the benefit of the
small revolutionary vote, which only slightly increased. Many former Labour voters
abstained. The benefit of the process of disillusionment went to the "National"
vote, which swept the country with 141/2 millions. It is clear that we have here a special
form of the same process which was demonstrated in Germany. The betrayal by Social
Democracy thrusts millions of workers and former petitbourgeois supporters into the
reactionary camp, which is skilful to put forward a new flag in order to win them. This is
the heart of the process of Fascism. It is revealed in its first rudimentary form in the
"National" manoeuvre in Britain. The "National" vote of 1.931 was the
warning-signal of the danger of Fascism. Second, the National Government marks the process
of bourgeois concentration and intensified dictatorship for the carrying through of
measures of an increasingly Fascist character. The consciousness of this role of the
National Government, as directly analogous to that of Nazism or Fascism, was openly
expressed by the Prime Minister, MacDonald, in his speech to the National Labour Committee
on November 6, 1933: The secret of the success of dictatorships is that they have managed
somehow or other to make the soul of a nation alive. We may be shocked at what they are
doing, but they have certainly awakened something in the hearts of their people which has
given them a new vision and a new energy to pursue national affairs. In this country the
three parties in co-operation are doing that, and our task must be to get the young men
with imagination, hope and vision behind us. The National Government thus avowedly sets
itself the task to achieve the same objects as those of Hitlerism. in Germany, whose
"dictatorship" it publicly praises as representing a "new vision" and
a "new energy" to "make the soul of a

SIGNIFICANCE OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IN BRITAIN 265

nation alive." This direct praise of Fascism comes from the man who was till 1931
the accepted Leader of the Labour Party, and who indeed gave similar praise to Italian
Fascism, while still Leader of the Labour Party. A still more complete and conscious
expression of the new policy has been provided in the more recent declarations of the
Cabinet Minister, Elliot, Secretary for Agriculture, a former Fabian. Elliot, who came to
the front as the most active exponent of the new economic policy in respect of the whole
system of quotas, licences, subsidies, controlled and restricted production, etc., has
increasingly underlined the political significance of the process. In his broadcast speech
under the title "Whither Britain?" on March 27th, 1934, he spoke of the
transition to the "New State," of the necessity to "give up a certain
amount of liberty," of the need of "economic self-discipline,"
"psychological self- discipline," etc., and directly compared the role of the
National Government to that of the Hitler Government in Germany. To- day Elliot stands out
as the principal governmental representative of the new Fascist tendency. The development
to Fascism does not necessarily take the same form in every country. The general
tendencies of the new economic and political policies which receive their most complete
expression in Fascism are common in greater or less degree, as has been already pointed
out, to all modern capitalism. But the first steps towards Fascism commonly develop in and
through the decaying forms of the old bourgeois democracy. This is above all the
significance of the National Government, which itself carries forward tendencies already
visible in the whole post-war capitalist development. On the one hand, the National
Government carries forward the new lines of economic policy (increasing State regulation
of production, tariffs, quotas, import boards, the striving towards empire economic unity)
and the active increase of war preparations. On the other hand, the National Government
carries forward the process of the transformation of bourgeois democracy from within-the
development of new forms of intensified capitalist dictatorship and increasing restriction
of democratic rights. This process is already visible in the whole post-war period,
notably in such measures as the Emergency Powers Act and in

266 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the Trade Union Act of 192 7. It is carried very markedly forward under the National
Government. This is shown in such measures as: 1.The increasing separation of governmental
action from parliamentary forms, and extension of government by administrative order or by
Orders in Council (the Economy cuts and Means Test were put through by Orders in Council,
and only referred to Parliament after they were already in operation); 2.The
reorganisation of the police under increasingly centralised and military forms, and rapid
increase of police expenditure; 3.Increasing restriction of the rights of free speech and
assembly, prohibitions of meetings (e.g., bannings of meetings of unemployed at labour
exchanges), imprisonment without charge of any offence committed (Tom Mann case), etc.;
4.Active political repression against the workers (in the two and a half years of the
National Government up to the spring of 1934 over 1900 arrests for political offences have
taken place, over 600 sentences for a total of 1,613 months imprisonment, and some 850
fines for a total Of L2,540, police interference with strikes, etc.; 5.Increasing police
violence against the workers, baton charges, etc. 6.The Unemployment Bill, bringing the
unemployed, who have outrun the short period of regular benefit, under the control of a
centralised autocratic Board, not responsible to Parliament, with power to establish camps
and "training centres" ("concentration camps" in the Home Secretary's
phrase), subjecting them to a semi-military regime and forced labour without pay or for
purely nominal rates of pay-any worker who resists this slavery and smashing of trade
union rates and conditions being liable to be sent to prison; 7.The Incitement to
Disaffection Bill, nominally directed against anti-militarist propaganda, but in fact very
much wider and so worded, in its original form as presented, as to make the mere
possession of any revolutionary socialist or anti-war literature an offence

THE ROOSEVELT EMERGENCY REGIME 267

punishable with two years imprisonment, and giving to the police unlimited powers of
search and confiscation. All this may be described as the process of "encroaching
Fascism" within the old forms, which precedes and prepares the full Fascist attack.
An examination of the experience of the Mining regime in Germany, or of the successive
earlier stages of Dollfuss in Austria (when he was still loudly hailed as the
"champion of democracy" by all the liberal and social democratic forces of the
West), will abundantly show the significance of this process, which has definitely begun
its first stages in Britain. 3. The Roosevelt Emergency Regime. The Roosevelt emergency
regime in the United States offers a still clearer demonstration of the whole process.
Here the move to a form of dictatorship of a war-type is open. From the moment of his
inauguration the new President demands and is granted emergency powers "as in
wartime." I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the
crisis-broad executive power to wage war on the emergency as great as the power that would
be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe. (President Roosevelt's
Inaugural, March, 1932.)

We do not expect to have to resort to the drastic steps taken during the war. But we
have the same kind of a situation. (General H. S. Johnson, speech at Chicago.)

What is the essence of the "New Deal," if we strip from it the sentimental
philanthropic ballyhoo? The "New Deal," the policy of the Roosevelt regime
expressed in the National Industrial Recovery Act and associated measures, represents the
most comprehensive and ruthless attempt of finance- capital to consolidate its power with
the entire strength of the State machine over the whole field of industry, to hold the
workers in subjection under extreme and intensified exploitation with a universal lowering
of standards, to conduct on this basis and on the basis of the depreciated dollar a world
campaign for markets, and to prepare directly the consequent inevitable war. The signal
marks of the Roosevelt policy are: I. State-Controlled Capitalism.-The process of
trustification in the United States was previously still hampered by

268 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

the remains of the old anti-trust legislation surviving from the pre-war epoch. The New
York correspondent of the London Times (June 6, 1933) stated the first and principal
reason for big business support of the Industrial Recovery Act: "What big business
desires above all things is relief from the antiquated Anti-Trust Laws." By one
stroke all anti-trust legislation is swept away. The Preamble of the Industrial Recovery
Act openly proclaims the aim "to remove obstructions to the free flow of inter-State
commerce which tend to diminish the amount thereof, and to promote the Organisation of
industry for the purpose of co-operative action among trade groups." A gigantic
process of consolidation of the big monopolies, and extermination of the small producers
and independent firms in the leading industries ("Ten million retailers protest
against the Blue Eagle: they maintain they cannot do business on a basis of shorter hours,
more wages and practically the same prices"-Daily Telegraph , August 25, 1933),
already begun by the effects of the crisis, the credit-smash and the operations of the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, is now carried to its logical conclusion. Every
leading industry is established under direct State Organisation, with regulation of labour
conditions, price- fixing, restriction of production and guaranteed profits. This is the
ideal of capitalist society in decay, seeking to chain the productive forces which have
outgrown capitalism. 2. Inflation.-The ostensible purpose of inflation is proclaimed as to
give a stimulus to recovery (a stimulus whose artificial character is rapidly revealed, as
in the heavy decline in the autumn of 1933 following the short-lived summer boom), and to
relieve and reduce the load of debts of agriculture and industry, which were threatening
to bring the whole structure crashing. Its actual operation reveals it as one of the
familiar weapons of finance-capitalist brigandage in periods of crisis. It means in the
first place a direct robbery of all small owners and of all small savings, the partial
expropriation of the petitbourgeoisie. Second, it serves as the basis for colossal
sharespeculations and manipulations, as well as processes of priceraising, for the profit
of finance-capital. Third, it effects a universal reduction of the real wages of all
workers, such as to make the guaranteed wage standards, already fixed at very low levels,
in practice the cover for a general lowering of wagestandards, as even the American
Federation of Labor has now

THE ROOSEVELT EMERGENCY REGIME 269

begun to complain. Fourth, it opens the way in the international sphere to a
price-cutting campaign on the basis of the depreciated dollar, to wipe out competitors and
swamp the already depressed world markets. 3. Servitude and Intensified Exploitation of
Labour.-The new Industrial Codes establish an authoritative regime of the subjection of
the worker under the direct union of the employers and the State, with Government-fixed
wages, hours and conditions of labour, virtually compulsory arbitration by the Government,
and increasingly open offensive on the right to strike and on independent workers'
organisation. While the social fascist organs are drawn directly into the governmental
apparatus, a full offensive is let loose on all independent militant unions. The
inauguration of the new industrial regime is accompanied by the shooting of miners on
strike in Western Pennsylvania and the proclamation of martial law against strikers in
Utah and New Mexico. "The A. F. of L. has voluminous evidence," declared its
president, William Green, on January 15, 11934, at a hearing on the lumber code,
"that drastic reduction has taken place in the wages of skilled workers since the
adoption of the code, and that the minimum wages tended to become the maximum wages
paid." In the name of the N.R.A. the employers endeavour to proclaim all strikes and
picketing illegal. At the same time in the Labour Camps some 350,000 young workers are
placed under semi-military conditions. 4. War-Preparations.-The Industrial Recovery Act
specifically provides for the building of "naval vessels, airplanes and mechanisation
or motorisation of the army tactical units." 235 million dollars of the special
appropriations for Public Works are devoted to the Navy. The Secretary for the Navy,
Swanson, states: I know of no more effective and praiseworthy way of giving our industrial
life that country-wide stimulus which it so sorely needs than by devoting a portion of the
money and energy which is to be used for public construction to this vital arm of our
national defence. (New York Times, June 16, 1933.) The war character of the whole system
of State Organisation, mobilisation of industry and semi-conscription of labour, is
obvious. To what outcome does the new American system lead? Its economic outcome can be no
more successful in solving the

270 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

crisis than the similar methods of Fascism elsewhere. The emptiness of all the promises
of renewed prosperity, of the solution of unemployment and of the achievement of higher
standards all round, has been already demonstrated. The speculative production boom of the
summer of 1933 only led to a small increase in employment, and yet was followed by a rapid
collapse, showing the impossibility of absorbing the present increased productive power
under existing conditions, save through the final "solution" of war. The Federal
Reserve Board index of industrial production (reduced to the base of 1928 as 100) which
rose from 54-1 in March 1933, to (0-1 in July, fell to 65.8 in November, and had only
risen to 68.5 by January 1934. The "stagger" system of reducing the nominal
figure of unemployment, as in Germany, by spreading the existing employment means no real
increase in the volume of employment. The Civil Works schemes, while pouring out colossal
sums of money to give temporary employment and thus assisting the process of inflation,
only intensify the problem when, owing to the enormous rising volume of debt, they have to
be diminished and come to an end, throwing millions again into the unemployed, while no
permanent channels of employment have been found. The level of real wages has been lowered
owing to the rapid rise in prices. The American Federation of Labor is compelled to report
in its official organ in January 1934: Since the bank crisis, the average worker's weekly
income has risen 7.4 per cent. (to October), but prices the worker has to pay for his
living expenses have risen much more than this. Food prices are up 118 per cent. (to
November 21), prices of clothing and furnishings are Up 26.3 per cent. (to November). Thus
the worker who had a job right along is worse off than he was when the year began. His pay
envelope may be larger, but it buys less. His real wage is smaller. (The American
Federationist, January, 1934.)

In January 1934, the President of the American Federation of Labor, William Green,
complained that there were still nearly twelve million workers not absorbed into normal
employment, and that "workers are steadily losing by price increases": Our
estimate shows that there are 11,690,000 persons wanting work, but unable to find
employment in our normal industrial production services. . . . Unemployment is still above
the 1932

THE ROOSEVELT EMERGENCY REGIME 271

level by 1,500,000. . . . Workers are steadily losing by price increases, and we must
expect their living standards to be further reduced as prices go on upward. But while all
the social -reformist "progressive" camouflage of the Roosevelt "New
Deal" thus rapidly fades away, the reality of the new Fascist type of system of
concentrated state capitalism and industrial servitude remains. As Roosevelt declared in
his Message to Congress in January 1934: We have created a permanent feature of our
modernised industrial structure, and it will continue under the supervision, but not the
arbitrary dictation, of the Government itself. Roosevelt's Secretary for Agriculture,
Wallace, still further brought out the implications of this process in his pamphlet
entitled "America Must Choose", issued in the spring of 1934. in this pamphlet,
in the course of which he advocates that America must "annually and permanently
retract of our good agricultural land some 25,000,000 acres", he states: The new
types of social control that we have now in operation are here to stay, and to grow on a
world or national scale. . . . As yet, we have applied in this country only the barest
beginnings of the sort of social discipline which a completely determined nationalism
requires. . . . We must be ready to make sacrifices to a known end. The significance of
the Roosevelt regime is above all the significance of the transition to Fascist forms,
especially in the economic and industrial field. As the Associate Editor of the Current
History Magazine of the New York Times, E. F. Brown, writes: The new America will not be
capitalist in the old sense, nor will it be Socialist. If at the moment the trend is
towards Fascism, it will be an American Fascism, embodying the experience, the traditions
and the hopes of a great middle-class nation. (Current History Magazine, July, 1933.)

But in fact this stage is still a transition. As the failure of the plans of economic
recovery becomes manifest and gives place to new forms of crisis and widespread mass
discontent, and above all as the advance to war implicit in the whole Roosevelt policy
develops, the demand for corresponding political forms of Fascism will inevitably come to
the front in the United States.

272 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

4. The February Days and the National Concentration Government in France. In France the
development of the effects of the economic crisis appeared at first more slowly. But in
the latest period the situation has gone forward with extreme rapidity, and the question
of Fascism has become a burning issue. The events of February 6-12, 1934, and the fall of
the Daladier Government, leading to the formation of the transitional Doumergue Government
of National Concentration, have brought to the front the whole question of Fascism and the
increasing signs of advance to a direct armed struggle. These events are of vital
importance for the Western "democratic" countries, because in these events are
set out with crystal clearness the two alternative paths, the path of the "left
bloc" or bourgeois- liberal democracy, leading in fact to Fascism, or the path of the
united working-class front of struggle, which can alone defeat Fascism. What was the
situation on the eve of the events of February 6-12? The national-chauvinist, Fascist and
Royalist forces in France-at all times active beneath the democratic-republican
exterior--developed extreme activity in the gathering crisis, and especially since the
advent of Hitlerism, with the open alliance and assistance of the police authorities in
Paris and of the big press, that is, of the State and finance-capital. At the same time
the governmental forms were showing the same increase of executive powers and repression
of the workers common to all capitalist governments in the present period. Even The Times
on February 5, that is, before the decisive events, was compelled to note: A contrast has
been drawn between the severe repression of Communist manifestations and the comparative
immunity from punishment of Royalist demonstrators and the Royalist newspaper which
directly incites its readers to riot in the streets. This was under a "Left"
bourgeois Government, maintained in office in practice by the support of the Socialist
Party. The majority in Parliament was a "Left Cartel" majority, consisting of
the Socialist Party and of the "Left" bourgeois groupings. This "Left"
bourgeois Government (previously under Chautemps, then under Daladier) was heavily
discredited by

THE FEBRUARY DAYS 273

one of the typical recurrent financial and police scandals, the Stavisky scandal, which
was being utilised by the reactionary forces to raise agitation against the parliamentary
regime and to prepare a Government of National Concentration, just as the crisis of the
franc was similarly used in 1926. After the dismissal of the police chief, Chiappe, who
was notoriously hand-in-glove with the Royalist and Fascist elements, preparations were
openly made- without interference-and proclaimed in the big press for a jingo riot on
February 6, which was to serve as a preliminary trial of strength and spear-head for the
Fascist advance. What was the line of the Daladier Government and of "left
democracy" in the face of this challenge? The Socialist Party voted its confidence in
the Daladier Government, in the "Left" bourgeois Government, as the defender of
"democracy" against Fascism. On the basis of their support the Daladier
Government received a substantial parliamentary majority of 360 to 220 on the critical
evening of February 6. As against this line the Communist Party, which had approached the
Socialist Party for the united front against Fascism in March 1933, and been refused,
called for the united front from below, called the workers to the streets against the
Fascist attack, and through the unions began to make agitation for a general strike
against the Fascist menace. The two lines were now to receive their practical
demonstration in the events that followed. The Daladier Government massed heavy military
forces in Paris in the days preceding February 6. But did it act against Fascism? The
leaders of the Fascists and Royalists were allowed to carry on their preparations in
complete freedom. Previously, on the eve of a Communist May Day demonstration, three
thousand Communist leaders had been arrested in Paris in order to cripple the organisation
of the demonstration. On the eve of this reactionary demonstration not a single Fascist or
Royalist leader was touched. The organisers of the reaction were given freedom of the
streets to burn, destroy, set fire to Government buildings, and advance on the Chamber of
Deputies; no adequate forces were placed against them; the police were inactive; the
"Gardes Republicaines" and "Gardes Mobiles" were steadily commanded to
retreat and give way before the bourgeois mob; only at the last

274 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

moment, when the Chamber was nearly reached and the bourgeoise demonstrators began to
fire with their revolvers, the "Gardes Mobiles," not on the order of their
officers, but in instinctive self-defence, fired back, and about a dozen of the dupes of
the reaction and onlookers were killed. The subsequent Commission of Enquiry established
that the shooting was begun by the Fascist demonstrators and maintained for half an hour
before any answering fire took place on the side of the Government forces; and that even
so no order to fire was given by any officer, but that the rank and file of the
"Gardes, Mobiles" began spontaneously to fire in self-defence and were
immediately ordered to stop by their officers. The sequel to this incident is instructive
for the whole future of parliamentary democracy. Immediately following this incident, on
the very next day, on February 7, the Daladier Government, which bad just received an
overwhelming parliamentary majority, resigned; and there was installed, amid the plaudits
of the millionaire press, the Doumergue Government of National Concentration, with the
semi- fascist-Tardieu in a strategic position in its midst. How did this happen? Why this
sudden surrender of the legal Government with a parliamentary majority before the first
Fascist street-offensive? This question is of crucial importance for all the Western
"democratic" countries, where confidence in "democratic institutions"
as the defence against Fascism is still preached. Why did Daladier, "champion of
democracy" and chosen representative of French Socialism, immediately resign before
the Fascist extra-parliamentary offensive? Where, then, was the "sovereignty of
Parliament," "law and order," the "will of the electors," and all
the paper paraphernalia of bourgeois democracy? Flown to the winds, as soon as
financecapital gave the order in the opposite direction. The parliamentary majority might
vote one thing; but finance- capital ordered another, and finance-capital was obeyed,
including by the representatives of that parliamentary majority. The Daladier Government
issued an explanation that it resigned "to avoid further bloodshed": The
Government, while responsible for the maintenance of order, declined to ensure it by the
employment of exceptional means, which might result in severer repressive action and
further blood

THE FEBRUARY DAYS 275

shed. The Government bad no wish to use soldiers against the demonstrators, and for
that reason bad laid down office. The transparent hypocrisy of this
"explanation" is manifest. As if any French bourgeois Government bad ever
hesitated to use the utmost violence against working-class demonstrators, not merely using
soldiers against them, but organising complete military operations against them, as was
done on the night of the far more serious fighting of February 9, amid the applause of the
entire bourgeois press. Daladier resigned, not because be was a pacifist, but because he
was a puppet of finance-capital and could do no other. Daladier resigned because he was
compelled by the real ruling forces of the State, in relation to which a parliamentary
majority was mere stage-play. What else could he do? Even had he had the will to fight, be
bad no forces. The police belonged to the reaction; the General Staff belonged to the
reaction; it was reported that the old Marshal Lyautey threatened to lead the army on
Paris if there should be any attempt at resistance by the parliamentary majority. He was
as contemptible a helpless puppet as Asquith over Ulster. Had be wished to fight, he could
only have done one thing, to have publicly exposed the whole plot, and to have called on
the proletarian masses, on the rank and file of the soldiers, to resist. But this would
have meant to unloose the proletarian revolution, which he feared as much as any of the
Bloc National or the Fascists. At bottom he was one with these; all the liberal-democratic
pretence was no more than electoral humbug. He knew his duty. He went quietly. Therewith
the whole card-castle of bourgeois democracy, of the "democratic" defence
against Fascism, of "democracy versus dictatorship," of the whole Social
Democratic line, came tumbling down. The line of the "Left Cartel," of the
French Socialist Party, of the parliamentary-democratic "defense" against
Fascism, was proved once again only to have smoothed the way for the advance of Fascism,
for a Government of the Right, for intensified dictatorship against the workers-so much so
that the Socialist Party, after the damning exposure of February 6, was compelled to make
a show in words of calling for the united front and supporting the general strike against
Fascism, when it was no longer possible to hold back the workers with the
"democratic" deception.

276 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

In his speech of apologia to his constituents on April 8 Daladier admitted that he was
aware that a full counterrevolutionary coup was being prepared for February 6: The Fascist
organisations were mobilised to force an entry into the Chamber, to proclaim the fall of
parliament and to impose a dictatorship. Authentic documents proving this, direct appeals
to insurrection, have been placed in the hands of the Commission of Enquiry. Why, then,
did the Left-Democratic Government, with this information in its hands, take no action?
Why did these "democrats," so merciless and rigorous against the slightest sign
of Communist activity, making arrests and suppression right and left, not lay a finger on
the Fascist press which was openly calling to insurrection? He has no answer. On the
contrary, he is anxious to show that no serious measure of defence was taken: It has been
established that at no point was any order to fire given by the Government. Not a single
machine-gun, not a single repeating- rifle was in the hands of the "Gardes
Mobiles" or of the police. Why did the Government, chosen by the parliamentary
majority, take no steps to maintain itself against Fascism, but instead resign at once,
despite its parliamentary majority? He admits that this question is perplexing
"republican opinion": Republican opinion is amazed that the Government should
have resigned on February 7 instead of maintaining itself in power, since it had the
majority in parliament. He has no answer. He fumbles and stumbles over the question. He
accuses fellow-ministers of having wanted to give way. He accuses the President of having
insisted on his resignation. He hints at legal difficulties in the way of taking any
effective measures, of making arrests, of proclaiming martial law: would the President
have signed the decrees, or would parliament have supported him? As if there should have
been a moment's difficulty or hesitation to carry through any steps whatever, if it had
been workers, and not Fascists, who had advanced in armed formation to burn down
Government buildings, invade the Chamber and proclaim a dictatorship. Finally he ends with
the old lame excuse: It seemed better to resign than to risk any further spilling of
blood.

THE FEBRUARY DAYS 277

Thus the swan song of parliamentary democracy, the regime of blood against the workers,
of bloodshed unlimited in imperialist war, but toothless and helpless against Fascism and
reaction. On February 6-7, 1934, parliamentary democracy in France signed its
death-warrant. The Fascist-Royalist demonstrations of February 6 were in reality only the
preliminary offensive of the reaction to conceal and defeat the real rising movement of
mass-discontent, the rising movement of the working class, against which a Government of
intensified dictatorship was required. Hence the peculiar character of the manoeuvre which
installed the Government of National Concentration, The full significance of this
process-first, the preliminary preparations under cover of the "Left" Daladier
Government, and the military massing of artillery and troops by this Government with the
support of the Socialists, and then, at the critical moment, the replacement of this
Government by a Right Government of National Concentration-was laid bare in the days
following February 6, as the working class came increasingly into action. The battles of
Friday, February 9, when the Communist demonstration had been banned by the Government,
and the workers fought for possession of the streets, enormously exceeded in their range
February 6, and were turned into a full military operation by the Government, 23,000
troops and 14,000 Police were called into action against the workers. In contrast to
Tuesday night (February 6), when the policeoffered only half-hearted resistance to the
Fascist and Royalist rioters till it was too late, the city was turned into an armed camp.
(Daily Herald, February 10, 1934.) The capitalist dictatorship had no scruples now to
"employ exceptional means" or "use soldiers against the
demonstrators." But the strength of the working-class resistance was such that it was
successful to give pause to the first wave of the Fascist attack. This was still further
shown in the country-wide General Strike of February 12. The Communist slogan for the 24
hours general strike received such wide mass support that the reformist unions were
compelled formally to take it up, even though they tried to sabotage its execution, going
so far as to turn it in their actual instructions (the railwaymen) into a

278 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"fifteen minutes" or even "one minute" strike. But the strike and
the accompanying united front demonstrations won overwhelming support throughout the
country. The true path of the struggle against Fascism was thus shown. The rising strength
of the united working-class front of struggle in France was laid bare as the sole power of
the fight against the rising Fascist offensive of French finance-capital. The Government
of National Concentration in France is thus revealed as a typical transition Government of
the advance to Fascism. Its functions may be summed up: first, by the concentration of all
forces to counter and defeat the rising wave of working-class discontent; second, in view
of the strength of the working-class resistance, to cover the too open Fascist designs
with a show of "appeasement" and "safeguarding" of parliamentary
democratic institutions; third, to carry through the heavy offensive against the working
class required by finance-capital, as shown in the cuts campaign; and fourth, to provide
the cover under which the Fascist forces can carry forward their preparations for a
further assault. To-day the Fascist and Royalist forces are actively carrying forward
their armed preparations, and speak openly of a future coup. The signs point to critical
conflicts in the near future in France. 5. The Beginnings of Fascist Movements. In 1905
Milner, one of the more far-seeing leaders of the older British imperialism, described in
a private letter the only hope that he could see for the salvation of bourgeois rule:
Perhaps a great Charlatan-political scallywag, buffoon, liar, stump orator, and in other
respects popular favourite-may some day arise who is nevertheless a statesman-the
combination is not impossible- and who, having attained power by popular acts may use it
for national ends. It is an off-chance, but I do not see any other. (Milner, letter to
Lady Edward Cecil, The Milner Papers, Vol. II, 1899-1905.) Here we see the bourgeoisie
consciously groping for the forms of Fascism long before Fascism existed. The fact that so
lifelike a description of Hitler or Mussolini could have been penned a decade before these
began to play their role is a striking confirmation of how little it is personality that
creates

THE BEGINNINGS OF FASCIST MOVEMENTS 279

history, and bow much rather history calls forth the personality that it requires at a
given stage. Fascism does not come into existence because a "leader" arises. On
the contrary, because the bourgeoisie requires Fascism, a "leader" is created
from such materials as can be found. This is particularly important with regard to the
development of Fascist movements in Britain, France and the United States, where there is
still some difficulty in finding a suitable "leader" with sufficient popular
qualifications (in Britain, a definite candidate exists, but drawn from the plutocracy).
The development of a specific Fascist movement is a complicated process, involving a
considerable "trial and error" of rival movements, before the successful
technique is found. Only fools will laugh at the awkwardnesses of these embryonic stages,
and not realise the character of the serpent that is being incubated. The crystallisation
of Fascism into a single main movement has taken over ten years in Britain, and may not
have yet reached its final form; the process is still uncertain in France, owing to the
special complication of the existence of the older Royalist "Action Francaise,"
which is stronger so far than the nascent pure Fascist movements and may still dominate
them; in the United States the situation is still that of the early stages of confusion.
More important in this initial stage than the specific Fascist movements are the direct
tendencies within leading circles of the bourgeoisie towards open Fascism, and therefore
towards the creation of a Fascist movement or towards the support of the most effective
Fascist movement already existing. These direct expressions of support for Fascism are to
be found in abundance among the leaders of the bourgeoisie in Britain, France and the
United States. The close connections of leading British bourgeois circles with Italian
Fascism and with Hitlerism are notorious. Mussolini had scarcely completed his coup d'etat
before he was ostentatiously honoured by the British King in 1923 with the Order of the
Grand Commander of the Bath as a reward for his services to the counter- revolution
(corresponding to the similar title of a lower grade conferred on the unsuccessful
Denikin). The intimate relations of Chamberlain and Mussolini were repeatedly expressed
with a fervour which was not solely dictated by the requirements of foreign policy. The
connections

280 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

of envoys of Hitlerism with British Conservative headquarters were reported already
before its advent to power. Churchill openly declared, speaking in the Mecca of Rome in
1927, his support for Fascism: If I had been an Italian, I am sure I should have been
entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the
bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. (Churchill, Address to the Roman Fascists,
January 1927, quoted in Salvemini, The Fascist Dictatorship, P. 20.)

Mond, the patron saint of the Trades Union Congress and joint author of the Mond-Turner
Reports for class-co-operation, was no less open in his recognition of Fascism and
explicit avowal that his purpose in the industrial peace negotiations with the Trades
Union Congress was directed towards the same aim as Fascism. His avowal, made also in Rome
(the shrine where the hearts of British Conservative statesmen are to-day opened) in 1928,
was indeed so explicit, as reported in the British Press, that he subsequently endeavoured
to disavow it and allege an "abridged" and "incorrect version" of his
remarks; "my references to Fascism," he wrote, "were entirely restricted to
its application to Italy." The report, as printed in the Daily Herald, ran: "I
admire Fascism because it is successful in bringing about social peace," said Sir
Alfred Mond in an interview in Rome yesterday, reported by the Exchange. "I have been
working for years towards the same peace in the industrial field in England. . . . Fascism
is tending towards the realisation of my political ideals, namely, to make all classes
collaborate loyally." (Daily Herald, May 12, 1928.)* The Rothermere and Beaverbrook
press support of Hitler and Mussolini, and demands for "a British Hitler," are
notorious, culminating in the direct support accorded by the Rothermere press to the
British Fascist movement. Of especial importance are the recent developments of the
Diehard and right-wing revolt within the Conservative Party, represented by Churchill,
Lloyd and others, and also, in varying forms by Rothermere and Beaverbrook. Under the form
of the *See Trades Union Congress Report, 1928, P. 215, or Mond's partial denial, and P.
412 for Citrine's amazing defence of Mond's right to be a Fascist and in favour of the
trade union alliance with Mond, even if Mond were a Fascist: "Supposing that the
statement had been true, and that he had associated himself with Fascism, would that have
been a logical ground on which to break down dis. cussion?"

THE BEGINNINGS OF FASCIST MOVEMENTS 281

battle against Baldwin, and especially over the issue of India, is fought the battle of
more and more open opposition to parliamentary democratic institutions; and the
Conservative headquarters is hard pressed to maintain control within the party for the
present more cautious stage of official bourgeois policy (it may be noted that between
1933 and 1934 the Diehard or opposition vote on the Indian issue at the Central Council of
Conservative Associations rose from below onethird to over three-fifths). Churchill,
speaking before the Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform in October
1933, and opposing the extension of even the farcical sham "democratic"
institutions proposed for India, seizes the opportunity to refer to democratic
institutions as "now falling into general disrepute in the Western world." The
Times, writing of the revolt against Baldwin in the Conservative Party, notes both its
anti-democratic line and the possibility of its victory: That "Baldwinism" would
be followed by some form of "Diehardism"-whether dictatorial or bureaucratic or
purely commercial -is hardly open to question if these malcontents were to have their way.
They may have it yet. (Times, October 17, 1930.) This development is of especial
importance to note because, when the issue comes to a bead, it is far from certain that a
Churchill or a Lloyd will allow the leadership to pass to a Mosley.* Similar tendencies
and expressions looking more or less openly towards Fascism may be observed among the
statesmen and industrialists in the United States and France. Thus Gary, the United States
Steel King, declared at the International Chamber of Commerce Congress in 1023 (Observer,
April 1, 1923): We should be the better for a man like Mussolini here too. * On the other
"Progressive" wing of the bourgeoisie is worth noting the advocacy of Liberal
Fascism by H. G. Wells, and G. Bernard Shaw's active agitation on behalf of Fascism, which
has led him to be hailed as their patron by the British Fascists (see The Fascist Week,
February 23-March 1, 1934, on "G.B.S. on the Brink -Will He Ever Wear a
Blackshirt?" and the quotation from Shaw in praise of Mosley as the motto of the
official book B.U.F.: Oswald Mosley and British Fascism). The older agitation of the
Belloc- Chesterton school (against parliamentarism, against financiers, against Marxism,
against pacifism, against Jews; for nationalism, for small property, etc.) was fully
Fascist in an academic fashion - although the subsequent coming to life of their entire
programme with literal exactitude in the Catholic Hitter has not been appreciated by these
virulent anti- Prussians.

282 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

And the former United States Ambassador to Berlin, J. W. Gerard, declared in praise of
Hitler: Hitler is doing much for Germany; his unification of the Germans, his destruction
of Communism, his training of the young, his creation of a Spartan State animated by
patriotism, his curbing of parliamentary government, so unsuited to the German character,
his protection of the right of private property are all good; and, after all, what the
Germans do in their own territory is their own business, except for one thing-the
persecution and practical expulsion of the Jews. (New York Times, October 15, 1933.)
Abundant examples could also be quoted from the right wing press in France of an envious
admiration of Hitlerism. If we turn from these gathering tendencies to the specific and
organised Fascist movements, it is to be noted that in the recent period direct Fascist
movements have rapidly developed to prominence in Britain and France, as well as in the
smaller countries, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, etc. In the United States the
process of the Roosevelt development is still preparing the ground of Fascism; and the
question of direct fascist Organisation is still at the time of writing mainly a question
of confused tendencies and beginnings, such as the "Silver Shirts," "Khaki
Shirts," Ku Klux Klan revival, the Fascist movement of Dennis, etc.; from these
tendencies more developed fascist Organisation may be expected rapidly to emerge. But the
situation in Britain and France is already considerably more advanced; and at the present
stage the situation in Britain and France is of crucial importance for the future
development of Fascism in the Western imperialist countries. In France we have already
seen how the events of February 1934, leading to the fall of the Daladier Government and
the establishment of the Government of National Concentration, have brought the question
of Fascism sharply to the front and led to a rapid growth of the Fascist organisations.
The situation is complicated in France by the parallel existence of the Royalist
"Action Francaise" and of the newer directly Fascist organisations. The older
"Action Francaise," with its subsidiary hooligan bands, the "Camelots du
Roy," was originally founded in 1898 as a nationalist and anti-semitic Organisation,
and later became Royalist. With its close connections with right-wing

THE BEGINNINGS OF FASCIST MOVEMENTS 283

Conservatism and semi-official protection for its violent and unrestrained agitation,
it has considerable strength among the forces of the Right; but it is a rigidly
doctrinaire reactionary Royalist body, explicitly separating itself from the principles of
Fascism, although closely similar in general outlook and practice, and not accepting its
typical social-demagogic technique. The numerous directly Fascist organisations have not
yet coalesced into a single party. The previous attempt to found such a party, the
"Faisceau," established by Georges Valois in 1925, was not successful. To-day
the principal more or less explicitly Fascist organisations are the "Jeunesses
Patriotes," founded by Taittinger in 1924, and the semi- military "Croix de
Feu" (nominally an ex-servicemen's Organisation, but in fact recruited from all
sources), under Colonel de la Roque, founded in 1927 with subsidies from Coty, in its
early years numbering only a few thousands, but since the February days claiming 150,000
members. There are also a number of minor organisations and groups, such as the
"Mouvement National Populaire" around the "Action Nouvelle." Of the
fighting strength of these organisations the Paris correspondent of the Manchester
Guardian reports: The Croix de Feu, the Jeunesses Patriotes, the Action Francaise and
other reactionary organisations have probably not more than 25,000 to 30,000
"fighting members" in Paris. Nevertheless, if this force were armed, it would be
sufficiently impressive, though even then it could do little if it had the police and the
army against it. But there is just a danger that at the critical moment both the police
and the army might be on their side, or at any rate neutral. (Manchester Guardian Weekly,
March 23, 1934.) At the same time from the "Socialist" side has developed an
organisation, the "Neo-Socialists," or, as they have termed themselves, the
"Socialist Party of France," led by Marquet. This group was until the autumn of
1933 a right wing within the Socialist Party; under the influence of the victory of
Hitlerism it came forward with a new programme, attacking the old conceptions of
internationalism and of the proletarian basis of socialism, insisting on the need to build
on the basis of "the nation," and to appeal to the middle class and to
"youth," and stressing the necessity of "authority," of the
"strong State," of "order," of "discipline," of
"action," etc.

284 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Its outlook was thus, although in fact only developing and stating more explicitly the
basic social democratic outlook, marked by strong fascist influence; and the development
of this tendency was universally recognised as a development towards Fascism. In the
autumn of 1933 this group broke away from the French Socialist Party to found the
Socialist Party of France; its leader, Marquet, joined the Government of National
Concentration on its formation. In Britain the situation has not yet reached the same
degree of intensity as in France; but a fully formed Fascist Party and Organisation, even
though not yet strong, has been constituted since 1932 in the British Union of Fascists
under Mosley. The rival smaller organisations are to-day of minor importance; note may be
taken of the markedly anti-semitic Imperial Fascist League, and of the
"Greenshirts," originally a currency movement of more or less fascist character,
though denying Fascism. The British Union of Fascists, although not yet necessarily the
final form, has to-day established its position for two reasons: firstly and mainly,
because of its overwhelming financial support from influential sources, support by the
million-tentacled Rothermere Press, etc.; and secondly, because of its historical origin
from the heart of the Labour Party and Independent Labour Party, whereas the previous
attempts had remained movements purely of retired generals and suburban reactionaries. The
earlier movement of the "British Fascisti" originated in 1923, from the circles
around the Duke of Northumberland's journal The Patriot, and received its legal
recognition from the first Labour Government: The legality of their organisation was
officially recognised by the late Labour Government by the granting to them of their
Articles of Association as "The British Fascisti,(General Blakeney, President of the
British Fascisti, in The Nineteenth Century, January 1925.) Brigadier-General R. B. D.
Blakeney, its President, had been general manager of the Egyptian State Railways. Its
Commander for the London area was B rigadier- General Sir Ormonde Winter, K.B.E., and its
Vice-President was RearAdmiral J. C. Armstrong. (The subsequently attempted United Empire
Party, launched with the support of the

THE BEGINNINGS OF FASCIST MOVEMENTS 285

Rothermere and Beaverbrook Press in rg3o, was equally overweighted with generals:
"the Council is almost entirely composed of military officers, and their experience
of political matters or organisation is, with two exceptions, negligible, Morning Post,
September 13, 1930). These earlier would-be fascist organisations had no understanding of
the necessary Labour connections and social-demagogic technique of Fascism. The British
Fascisti proclaimed in all simplicity the objective "to render practical, and, if
necessary, militant defence of His Majesty the King and the Empire." A further
circular explaining the role of its two branches, Men's Units and Women's Units, stated:
In times of.peace both branches carry on propaganda, recruiting and counter-revolutionary
organisation. Should Revolution or a General Strike be threatened, Men's Units would form
the Active Force, and the Women's Units the Auxiliary Force. It is obvious that on this
basis of ingenuous "counter-revolutionary," honesty no mass Fascist movement
could be built up. The movement won a certain degree of attention in the period preceding
the General Strike, mainly owing to its semi-official police recognition, its members
being accepted in certain areas for recruitment into the special constabulary in a body
under their own officers. It achieved no political influence, and after the General Strike
fell into obscurity. The first significance of the Mosley movement was its direct origin
from within the Labour Party. Mosley, after having been a Conservative Member of
Parliament, entered the Labour Party in 1924. On the basis of his great wealth and
influential connections, he advanced with an extreme rapidity unattainable to ordinary
working- class members of the Labour Party, to a commanding position in that party, which
is always notoriously open to the power of money and of bourgeois connections, and where
seats are often offered as at an auction to the highest bidder (no less than fifty seats
were offered to Mosley in the same year that he joined). Within three years he was elected
to the Labour Party Executive in 192 7 with a higher vote than Herbert, Morrison, and in
1928 was re-elected, polling 2,153,000 votes. He was appointed a Minister of the Labour
Government of 1929, and in 1930 resigned on the grounds of inactivity to deal with
unemploy

286 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

ment. As a Minister he had produced the Mosley Memorandum, which was the first outline
towards a Fascist policy, that is, an active, openly non-socialist, far-reaching policy of
capitalist reconstruction. This policy, not because of its nonsocialist character, but
because of its active character, was unwelome to the conservative do-nothing line of the
Labour Government, which accordingly sat on it and endeavoured to bury it. Mosley appealed
to the Labour Party Conference in 193o and won 1,046,000 votes against 1,251,000 for the
Executive. He was re- elected to the Labour Party Executive, and thus in fact passed
straight from the Labour Party Executive to the organisation of his New Party or Fascist
Party in 1931. For the original wider political basis and influence of Mosley (in contrast
to the unsuccessful generals of the previous Fascist attempts), and his launching into the
front ranks of politics, it is thus necessary to thank the Labour Party and Independent
Labour Party, which in this way characteristically performed the role of Social Fascism.
While the Communist Party alone from the outset correctly gave warning of the Fascist
tendencies implicit in Mosley (which he at first endeavoured to deny), the Left Labour
politicians rallied to his support and assisted his campaign. The New Leader, the organ of
the Independent Labour Party, wrote of the Mosley Memorandum: In the main, as is known,
his scheme followed I.L.P. lines. (New Leader, October 10, 1930.)

Brockway wrote: In the ideas of the I.L.P. Group and the smaller Mosley Group there is
a good deal in common. . . . Before long we may expect to see a revolt by the younger
members of all three parties against the methods and spirit of the olde(Brockway,
"The Ferment of Ideas," New Leader, November 7, 1930.) The Mosley Manifesto of
December 1930, which already formally disclaimed Socialism ("the immediate question
is not a question of the ownership, but of the survival of British industry") and
demanded a Dictatorship of Five to carry out an aggressive capitalist programme, was
signed by seventeen Labour M.P.s, including five I.L.P. M.P.'s, together with

THE BEGINNINGS OF FASCIST MOVEMENTS 287

A. J. Cook.* When the New Party, the first definite step towards the formation of a
Fascist Party, was formed in the spring of 193 1, it was formed of six Labour M.P.'s and
one Conservative M.P., and made its appeal to "the mass of patriotic men and women
who are determined upon action." The final evolution from the womb of Social Fascism
to open Fascism developed in 193 1. After the unsuccessful Ashton by- election fight of
the New Party in April 1931, writes Strachey (Menace of Fascism, p. 161), "Mosley
began more and more to use the word Fascism in private." In May 1931, according to
the Daily Express (May 18, 1931), Mosley at a meeting at the headquarters of the New Party
"spoke of the need for discipline: it was generally agreed that there were many
lessons to be learned by the New Party from Hitlerism." Major Baker, political
secretary of Mosley, in an interview to the same journal declared: It is true that the
young men who are gathering round us are Oxford students and graduates. They are mostly
athletes The men around us are in many instances the owners of motorcars. They will form
themselves into flying squads to descend suddenly on a place. According to the Daily
Herald (June 6, 1931), a mission, consisting of Major Thompson, D.S.O., and L. J. Cumming
(formerly propaganda secretary of the West London Federation of the I.L.P.) was sent to
Germany to study the methods of the Nazis. Mosley, The Times (March 2, 193 1) reported,
"has, it is understood, collected a considerable fund-not, of course, from
Socialists." The details of this development are only important as showing in a
classically clear form the close connection of Social Fascism and Fascism. The last step
in the process took place in 1932 when the Fascist name was openly adopted, and the New
Party (as the Communists bad prophesied from the outset) was transformed into the British
Union of Fascists. The statement of policy, Mosley's Greater Britain was issued, which
repeats in very summary form the familiar features of Fascist economics * The names of the
seventeen Labour M.P.'s, signatory of the Mosley Manifesto, which became the starting
point of British Fascism, were, in addition to Mosley and his wife: Oliver Baldwin,
Aneurin Bevan, W. J. Brown, Dr. R. Forgan, J. F. Horrabin, M. Phillips Price, E. J.
Strachey, J. Batty, W. G. Cove, J. Lovat Fraser, S. F. Markham, J. McGovern, 1. J.
McShane, H. T. Muggeridge, and C. J. Simmons.

288 ]FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

and politics discussed in previous chapters, with the main stress on the economic
policy ("Corporate State," compulsory arbitration, "scientific
protection," regulation of production, trade, wages, prices and investments-the old
illusions of "planned capitalism"), and with the necessarily unpopular political
features of repression smoothed over under vague phrases or even omitted from mention.* In
the autumn of 1932 the Fascist Defence Force was established, and in 1933 Fascist
barracks-headquarters, of the type of the Brown Houses in Germany, began to be set up. The
growth of violence in 1933 in connection with the "wearing of political
uniforms" (i.e., of the Fascists-no Workers' Defence Force as yet exists) was
reported as follows by the Home Secretary in Parliament on February 20, 1934: The growing
danger of public disturbances which the police attribute to the wearing of what may
conveniently be called political uniforms is shown by the fact that the Commissioner of
Police for the Metropolis reports that for the first six months of 1933 there were in the
Metropolitan police district II disturbances of a political character attributed to this
cause, while in the last six months of the year there have been no less than 22 such
disturbances. In the beginning of 1934 Fascism was endowed with a largescale Press
organisation by the resources of the millionaire Rothermere Press being placed at the
service of the British Union of Fascists in order that it might represent a well-organised
party of the Right ready to take over responsibility for national affairs with the same
directness of purpose and energy of method as Hitler and Mussolini have displayed.
(Rothermere in the Daily Mail, January 15, 1934.)

The situation by the spring of 1934 was reported as follows by the Government (Lord
Feversham's reply on behalf of the Government in the House of Lords on February 28, 1934):
The membership of the British Union of Fascists was difficult to * the penal suppression
of strikes under the Corporate State is not mentioned. The violent suppression and
dissolution of any form of socialist working-class movement is not mentioned. On the
electoral system it is blandly stated (p. 34) that "Such electoral principles (i.e.
of the Corporate State) are designed not to limit the powers of electors, but rather to
increase their real power by enabling them to give a well-informed vote," without
stating that in fact in Fascist Italy and Germany the electors are presented with a single
ready-made list to give their assent to, with no permission of any alternative candidates.
But the whole book is marked by the glaring disingenuousness customary to Fascist
propaganda before power.

THE BEGINNINGS OF FASCIST MOVEMENTS 289

obtain, but the movement was gaining ground. . . . An article which had appeared in the
Daily Mail, written by the owner, had undoubtedly given it considerable impetus. The exact
source from which income was derived to finance these activities was unknown, but it was
obvious that substantial financial backing was forthcoming from various sources other than
that of the private wealth of the leader and the dues or subscriptions from members. The
policy of the Government was stated to be not to interfere to restrict the growth of
Fascism: As long as a majority were able, with the assistance or lack of assistance of a
Government, to maintain peace and order in this country, it was unnecessary for any great
action to be taken to restrict such parties. It is possible that in the near future, as a
result of the widespread mass opposition and indignation over the unchecked growth of
Fascism and Fascist violence, a show of measures may be taken by the authorities (as in
other countries, as in Germany, as in Italy) - purporting to restrict the "private
armies" of Fascism. The experience of other countries has shown abundantly that such
legal and administrative restrictive measures are always in practice exercised heavily
against any working-class self-defence, and only lightly, if at all, against Fascism
(e.g., in Germany, rigorous dissolution and disarming of the workers' Red Front, alongside
a short nominal ban on the Storm Troops by Bruning, the latter ban being officially raised
soon after by von Papen on "patriotic" grounds). Fascism in every country grows
by the direct support and connivance of the State authorities, of the higher police
authorities and of the bourgeoisie. The battle against Fascism can only be fought, not by
illusory trust in legalism, but by the power of the working-class movement.

WHAT is the future of Fascism? What is the future of the fight against Fascism? Fascism
is a historical phenomenon, arising in a concrete historical situation. It is useless to
discuss abstractly as in a schoolroom alternative social forms of "Fascism,"
"Democracy," "Dictatorship," etc., without regard to the actual
situation and general line of capitalism in the present period. Fascism is the outcome of
modern capitalism in crisis, of capitalism passing into the period of the proletarian
revolution, when it can no longer maintain its power by the old means, but is compelled to
resort to ever more violent methods for the suppression of all working-class Organisation,
and also for the attempted authoritarian economic unification and Organisation of its own
anarchy, in a last desperate effort to maintain its existence and master the
contradictions that are rending it. More specifically, Fascism is the consequence of the
delay of the proletarian revolution in Western and Central Europe in the post-war period,
when the whole objective situation calls for the proletarian revolution as the only final
solution and ever more visibly raises the issue of the struggle for power, but when the
working-class movement is not yet strong enough and ready owing to being disorganised and
paralysed by reformism, and thus lets the initiative pass to capitalism.
"Fascism," as Klara Zetkin declared in 1923, "is the punishment of the
proletariat for failing to carry on the revolution begun in Russia." Fascism is the
abortion consequent on a miscarriage of the proletarian revolution. But Fascism cannot
solve the contradictions or prevent the collapse of capitalism. On the contrary, Fascism
carries the contradictions, both within the capitalist world, and between the two worlds
since 1917, the capitalist world and the socialist world, to the highest point; Fascism
brings an extreme intensification of the class struggle and of the process of
revolutionisation.

THE DIALECTICS OF FASCISM AND REVOLUTION 291

Fascist tendencies are not peculiar to the countries of completed Fascist dictatorship,
to Germany, Austria and Italy, or to Poland, Hungary, etc. Fascist tendencies are common
in greater or less degree to all modern capitalism, including Western Europe and America,
wherever the process of decay and the advance of the class struggle have reached a certain
point, and advance in proportion as working-class resistance is paralysed or weakened by
reformism. I. The Dialectics of Fascism and Revolution. The victory of Fascism in Central
Europe, and the advance of Fascist tendencies in Western Europe and America, in 1933-4,
represents the highest point yet reached by the Counter- Revolution since the war. But
this victory of the Counter- Revolution does not represent the growing strength of
capitalism. On the contrary, it is the direct result of the extreme aggravation of the
world crisis and of the instability of capitalism, of the shattering of Versailles and all
the peace settlements, of the growth of social contradictions and mass discontent,
bursting all peaceful and legal forms: that is to say, of the very advance of all the
forces which finally make for the victory of the proletarian revolution, since the
proletarian revolution alone can solve these contradictions, which Fascism can only
intensify. Capitalism can no longer maintain its power by the old means. The crisis is
driving the whole political situation at an accelerating pace. All social and
international contradictions are brought to a new and greater sharpness by the successive
developments of the crisis of capitalism. All strata of the population are affected by the
crisis. The bourgeois regime is driven to ever more desperate expedients to prolong for a
while longer its lease of life. For the decade and a half since the war the bourgeoisie
has maintained its power mainly on the basis of Social Democracy as the governing
instrument to hold in the workers and prevent the working-class revolution. In return for
disciplining the workers and preaching myths about "democracy" and the
"peaceful path to Socialism," Social Democracy has been given ministerial posts,
patronage and pickings. This process of being drawn into the capitalist machine has been
held up to the workers as evidence of the gradual, peaceful conquest of

292 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"power" by the working class. How much this "power" was worth, when
it came to the test, or rather, where the real power lay, has been abundantly shown by the
event in Germany, Austria and elsewhere. But this system, or particular mechanism of
capitalist rule in the post-war crisis, is not eternal-as the Labour leaders, on the
flood-tide of Mondism and successive Labour Governments, have fondly hoped. The crisis
drives to sharper political issues, to intensified class struggle, to the need of new
forms of capitalist rule, to rapid and desperate emergency measures. The basis of widening
social reforms and concessions, hastily granted in the post-war period to stave off
revolution, and constituting the mechanism of Social Democratic influence and ascendancy
in the working class in the Western Imperialist countries, breaks down under the strain of
the economic crisis, and gives place to the withdrawal and cutting down of social reforms
and increasing attacks upon the workers. With this process a new alignment of political
forces develops. On the one hand, the hold of Social Democracy upon the workers begins to
weaken, as shown in its declining numbers, its increasing use of Social Fascist
disciplinary measures and violence, and in the growth of Communist influence. In the face
of this growing revolutionisation of the workers, the bourgeoisie hastens to act, while
there is yet time, before Communism has yet won its visibly approaching majority position
in the working class, while the disorganisation of the workers by Social Democracy can
still prevent successful resistance, and brings into play the dangerous hazard of Fascism
to smash the advance of the working class. On the other hand, the working class, tied to
capitalism by the reformist leadership inherited from the preceding period, is paralysed
from being able to play its decisive role as political leader in the developing crisis and
draw all the discontented strata of the population under its leadership for the overthrow
of capitalism. On the contrary, since there is no standing still, the exact reverse
process takes place in the early stages. As the crisis develops, the working class under
reformist leadership appears to grow, not stronger, but weaker. The policy of coalition
with capitalism has steadily demoralised and sapped the strength of the old working-class
organisations, brought

THE DIALECTICS OF FASCISM AND REVOLUTION 293

membership lower and lower every year to the lowest point since the war, and destroyed
the confidence of the workers in their Organisation and leadership. The class struggle
goes forward, but in disorganised forms , since the new fighting leadership has not yet
won the majority of the working class, and has to fight simultaneously the forces of
capitalism and the throttling stranglehold of the reformist machine. In consequence, the
working-class forces are weakened and divided at the very moment of the heaviest
capitalist attack, not because of the militant workers who remain true to the class
struggle, but because of the alliance of the reformist machine with capitalism. This
weakening of the workers' forces in the face of the Fascist attack is the price of the
path of bourgeois "democracy," of Social Democracy. At the same time as the
organised working-class forces are thus temporarily weakened, the way is opened for
alternative forces, which could otherwise play only a subordinate part, to come to the
front. The mixed intermediate strata or so-called middle classes, who can play no
independent political role, but can only act in practice as the ally of either the working
class or capital, come to the front, in proportion as the active role of the working class
is weakened. They are sharply affected by the crisis and by all the operations of
finance-capital. Their lower strata are the natural ally of the working class in the war
on finance-capital. But they see from their point of view the modern parliamentary state
as a coalition of Big Capital ("international financiers") and Labour bosses,
with themselves left out, and feel themselves squeezed by ever-increasing taxation for the
benefit of big business and the system of social services to the workers, that is, the
system of social reformism. Nor can the reformist Labour propaganda, which dare not touch
the roots of finance-capital, expose to them the real reasons of their plight, or give
them the revolutionary lead for which they are groping, to mobilise them against their
real enemy. Thus they become easy prey for the demagogic propaganda of finance-capital to
give them a sham "revolutionary" lead, exploiting to the full the weaknesses and
corruption of Labourism or Social Democracy, and organise them as a counter- force against
the working class, in contradiction to their own interests. Capital is able for the first
time to organise, no longer a mere mercenary army for its support, but a

294 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

mass movement, built on disgust with Reformism, built out of those intermediate strata
and unstable, discontented, disillusioned, working-class elements, against the organised
working class. From the ruins and discredit of Reformism Fascism springs. The old liberal
parliamentary-democratic method of maintaining bourgeois rule on a basis of social reforms
increasingly breaks down before the realities of the crisis and the sharpening of the
class struggle. On all sides the bankruptcy of the old social, economic and political
system becomes recognised, and the demand for a complete change of the social system
replaces the old cry for reforms. Capitalism has to meet this new situation in which its
whole regime begins to be questioned and denounced, no longer only by the few, but by the
overwhelming majority of the population, and the call for "socialism" and
"revolution" sounds on all sides. An extreme example of this process is revealed
in Germany on the eve of Fascism, where in the elections of the summer of 1932 no less
than 74 per cent. of the voters gave their votes for parties proclaiming the aim of
"socialism," and all the parties which declared their support of capitalism
could not win more than a quarter of the electors. In this situation capitalism is only
able to save its power for one further lease by the final desperate expedient of staging a
sham "revolution" with the nominal aim of "socialism," but in fact
designed to maintain its power-the "National Socialist Revolution" or Fascism.
The poison, from the point of view of capitalism, of the "revolutionary" and
"socialist" propaganda which can to-day alone win a mass hearing, is skilfully
rendered harmless by the antidote of the "national" idea. Thus the final mask of
this ultimate masquerade of capitalism staging a "socialist"
"revolution" to maintain its power becomes the old "national" label.
What is the significance of this ? Does it mean that the "national" appeal is in
fact stronger to the masses than the socialist? Not at all. The Nationalist Party in
Germany, on the basis of the pure "national" appeal, could only win two million
votes, where, by the skilful addition of "socialism," the "National
Socialist" Party could win thirteen millions. But the "national" label
becomes the final device for distorting and defeating the meaning of socialism, when the
defence of capitalism can no

THE DIALECTICS OF FASCISM AND REVOLUTION 295

longer be openly proclaimed. The whole drive of the present situation, as all are
increasingly compelled to recognise, is towards the necessity and inevitability of
collective social organisation, that is, towards socialism. The "national"
principle, on the other hand, represents in reality the rule of a given capitalist
grouping, in opposition to other capitalist groupings. But the "national"
principle is falsely presented to appear as the expression of the collective, social
principle against private egoism, individualism, capitalism. In this way the historical
movement towards collective social organisation, when it becomes too strong to be any
longer directly resisted, is attempted to be distorted from its common, human basis into
an exclusive group-assertive basis, which becomes in fact the cover for the maintenance of
the rule of the capital class. This is the significance of "National Socialism"
or Fascism. But what is the historical outcome of this process? The advance to Fascism as
the final defence means the destruction of legality, not by the revolutionaries, but by
the bourgeoisie, and the laying bare to all of the class struggle as a direct conflict of
force. In order to hold off the revolution, the bourgeoisie is compelled to play at
revolution, and to seek to "outbid the revolution." They are compelled to preach
to the masses contempt for peace and legality, which were formerly their best protection.
To prevent the working-class revolution, they are compelled to stage their masquerade
revolution, and even to dub it a "socialist revolution." The junkers, barons and
industrial magnates, in order to maintain their power, are compelled to place themselves
at the head of bandit hordes with cries of "Down with Interest-Capital!"
"Down with Unearned Income!" "Nationalisation of the Trusts!"
"Nationalisation of the Banks!" "Socialisation of all enterprises ripe for
socialisation!" etc. The modern Black Hundreds have to proclaim themselves
"socialists" and enemies of "capitalism" in order to win a hearing and
save capitalism. Such is the measure of the strength of capitalism revealed in the
temporary victory of the Fascist Counter-Revolution. It is manifest that we have here not
a strengthening, but in reality and in the final outcome, an extreme weakening of
capitalism. The further examination of the development of the fight against Fascism will
reveal the inevitable final working out of the dialectics of this process.

296 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

2. The Fight Against Fascism. What, then, of the future of the fight against Fascism?
Fascism, it is evident from the above analysis, develops out of the decay of bourgeois
democracy and reformism in the conditions of the capitalist crisis. Indeed, Fascism
develops in the first place in and through the forms of bourgeois democracy, step by step
strengthening the state coercive apparatus and emergency powers and restricting the rights
of the workers, in proportion as the workers' resistance is paralysed by reformism and
trust in constitutionalism; and only when the ground has been thus fully prepared within
the shell of "democracy," and the workers' forces disorganised to the maximum,
only then the final blow is struck and the complete and open Fascist dictatorship is
established. Germany and Austria are the outstanding examples of this process, where all
the preliminary stages for the victory of Fascism were carried through by a Bruning or a
Dollfuss in the name of the defence of "the constitution" and with the support
of the Social Democratic leadership on this basis. In consequence, the fight against
Fascism cannot be conducted on the basis of trusting to bourgeois "democracy" as
the defence against Fascism. To do this means to invite and to guarantee the victory of
Fascism. The fight against Fascism can only be conducted on the basis of the united class
fight of the workers (leading all the exploited strata) against all the attacks of
finance- capital, whether these attacks are conducted through nominal
"democratic" forms or through open Fascist forms. The stronger the fight of the
workers in the early stages, within the still nominally maintained "democratic"
forms, the less easy becomes the advance of the bourgeoisie to the further stages, to the
open Fascist forms. Hence the importance of the united working-class front. The strength
of the working-class fight is also decisive for winning the wavering petit- bourgeois
sections. The bourgeois democrats and reformists argue that Fascism is the consequence of
Communism. "The fear of the dictatorship of the working class has evoked the iron
dictatorship of Capitalism and Nationalism. Reaction on the 'Right' has bred reaction on
the 'Left.' Reaction of the 'Left' is displaced by triumphant reaction of the 'Right'
" (Labour Manifesto on "Democracy versus Dictatorship," March 1933). From

THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM 297

this they draw the conclusion, expressed in many Labour speeches: "To defeat
Fascism, root out Communism." This line is expressed in the abstract slogan
"Democracy versus Dictatorship," presented without reference to class-relations:
that is, in practice, defence of the existing capitalist state (with its increasing
Fascist tendencies) against the working-class revolution, under cover of the plea of
defence against the Fascist danger. This line of the Labour Party is also the line of the
big bourgeoisie in its present propaganda. Thus the Conservative leader, Baldwin, declared
in a speech at Glasgow on June 24, 1932. In Europe you find these Communistic methods were
tried in Italy. What was the result? Something very near civil war, when the Right beat
the Left, and you got a dictatorship, not of the Left, but of the Right. . . . I say that
a dictatorship of no kind will we have in this country, either of the Right or of the
Left, at any time. What is important here is not the glaring travesty of the actual facts:
namely, that in Italy the Communists were in a minority, that the Reformist Socialists in
Italy were defeated, not because they adopted Communist methods, but because they
specifically refused to adopt Communist methods, because they refused to seize power in
1920 when by the admission of all it was theirs !or the taking, because they clung to
passive parliamentary and industrial strike tactics, and therefore Fascism conquered; and
that, finally, the only country where the working class has adopted Communist methods, the
Soviet Union, is the only country where Fascism has not been able to show its face. All
this has been long demonstrated by history; and the Conservative-plus- Labour
propagandists are only hoping to play on the ignorance of their hearers when they thus
endeavour to conceal the real facts. But what is here important is the exact unity, even
to a literal identity of phrasing, revealed between the line of the Labour Party and the
line of the Conservative Party, that is, of the ruling party of the bourgeoisie. This
identity should already awaken the alertness of any workingclass supporter of the Labour
Party to the fact that the line here expressed represents no defence of working-class
interests or real fight against Fascism. The whole dialectics of revolution and
counter-revolution, of vital importance for the understanding of the present period,

298 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

lies concealed and distorted behind this treatment. The conception of Communism as the
cause of Fascism is as shallow in understanding of the real working of social forces as it
is illusory in fact. The growth of the working-class revolution (Communism), and the
growth of violent capitalist repression, are in reality both equally the consequence and
outcome and expression of the growing crisis and break-up of capitalism. They develop as
parallel parts of the single process of the gathering revolutionary crisis. To find in one
symptom the cause of the other symptom is worthy of the shallowest quack. In fact the
example of Austria, where the Communist Party was still very weak and where Social
Democracy boasted of the completeness of its control of the working class, has shown how
little the bourgeoisie has need of the pretext of Communism to advance to the Fascist
dictatorship. "Before the war," declared Lenin (speech to the All-Russian
Conference of the Bolshevik Party in May 19 17), "England was the freest country in
the world. There was freedom in England because there was no revolutionary movement
there." Does this mean that the masses in pre-war England were fortunate because they
bad no revolutionary movement? On the contrary. The formal "freedom" was only
the mirror, the counterpart, of the real subjection. The "freedom" was
conditional on the masses accepting passively their servitude and looking only for the
crumbs of reforms. But so soon as the workers begin to stir against their servitude and to
fight consciously for their liberation, the "freedom" rapidly disappears and
gives place to the whip. And that is the meaning of Fascism. Fascism marks the extreme
intensification of the capitalist dictatorship and offensive against the working class;
but it marks thereby at the same time the growth of capitalist contradictions and the
growth of the revolutionary awakening of the working class. If to-day in England and the
other Western countries the traditional "freedoms" are being steadily eaten into
and cut down, if police expenditure is trebled since the war and the police are being
centralised and militarised, if freedom of agitation and assembly and demonstration is
being more and more cut away, if the trade union machine on top is absorbed into unity
with capitalism and the State, and the price of criticism of Labour leaders is assessed at
seven thousand pounds

THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM 299

by the capitalist courts, all this is only a measure of the awakening of the working
class. The awakening of the working class pricks the myth of "freedom" and lays
bare the lash of the despot. The degree of violence, the degree of coercion and
restriction of rights, the variation of methods between open complete Fascism and partial
developing forms of Fascism beneath a decaying "democratic" cover, corresponds
to the degree of development of the working class and of the relations of the class
struggle. When the British and French labour leaders boast of the supposed immunity of
their countries from Fascism (actually, slower development of Fascism), they are only
paying tribute to the backwardness of their own movements. But this backwardness is
rapidly disappearing. Does this mean that, so long as the forms of bourgeois democracy
remain, bourgeois democracy provides the best defence of the workers against Fascism? On
the contrary. The workers fight, and need to fight, tenaciously for every democratic right
of organisation and of agitation within the existing regime; but they cannot afford for
one moment to be blind to the fact that bourgeois democracy is only a cover for the
capitalist dictatorship, and that within its forms the advance to Fascism is steadily
pushed forward. Bourgeois democracy breeds Fascism. Fascism grows organically out of
bourgeois democracy. At what point did Dollfuss, "champion of democracy in
Europe," become Dollfuss, champion of Fascism? The process developed through such a
series of stages that up to the very last Social Democracy was offering alliance to
Dollfuss to "save the constitution," at the same time as Dollfuss was
proclaiming the complete principles of Fascism and preparing to turn his guns upon the
workers. The more the workers place their trust in legalism, in constitutionalism, in
bourgeois democracy, the more they make sacrifices to save the existing regime as the
"lesser evil" against the menace of Fascism, the heavier become the capitalist
attacks and the more rapid the advance to Fascism. To preach confidence in legalism, in
constitutionalism, in bourgeois democracy, that is, in the capitalist state, means to
invite and to guarantee the victory of Fascism. That is the lesson of Germany and of
Austria. And this is the reality which blows to smithereens the deceitful and disastrous
slogan of "Democracy versus Dictatorship."

300 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Yet in face of the deadly lessons of Germany and of Austria the British Labour Party
leadership and Social Democracy in Western Europe are to-day repeating to the last detail
the fatal line of German Social Democracy. All that German Social Democracy and the German
trade unions preached and practised, the British Labour Party and the British trade unions
are preaching and practising to-day. How then can they expect the same policy to lead to a
different outcome? They preach up and down the country in favour of democracy and
constitutionalism and legality. So did German Social Democracy. They denounce Communism;
they refuse the united front; they expel all militant workers; they set up a network of
discipline to maintain the safety of their organisations for capitalism. So did German
Social Democracy. They are faithful pillars of capitalism and of imperialism. So was
German Social Democracy. They are treading the same road. Only the action of the workers,
learning the lessons in time, refusing to follow their teaching, breaking their bans and
building up the common front against capitalism, can change the outcome. What have they to
offer the workers if their policy leads to the same outcome as confronted German Social
Democracy? Nothing. What is their answer? They have no answer. Citrine, leader of British
trade unionism, speaking of the Trades Union Congress in September 1933, on the situation
that confronted German Social Democracy, could only say: "I hope to God we are never
put into a similar position. I hope we never have to face that position." And again,
with regard to the growth of mass unemployment as the visible "common factor"
both in Britain and in Germany. If that gets worse, I cannot answer for the consequences.
"Hope to God." "Cannot answer." Such is the final lead of British
Labourism in the face of Fascism. Of one thing only Citrine is sure. It is impossible to
fight. If it comes to a fight, the workers will be beaten. If we go in for the method of
force, we shall be badly beaten. And again: If we try to organise by force of arms, we
shall be beaten. "We shall be beaten." "We shall be badly beaten."
Such is the litany of defeat before the battle, by which the reformist leaders seek to
drill into the workers the sense of their own

THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM 301

impotence. This is the open invitation to capitalism to launch the attack on the
workers' organisations; the workers are defenceless and cannot resist; Social Democracy,
as the Chairman of the Trades Union Congress declared on the same occasion, is
"peaceful, law-abiding, and shrinks from fratricidal conflict," and therefore is
inevitably, as he finds, at the mercy of its bloodthirsty enemies: One of the tragic
lessons of events in Germany was that the enemies of democracy were willing to shed blood
to destroy liberty, and did not shrink from murder, arson and lawless action; but Social
Democracy was peaceful, law-abiding, and shrank from fratricidal strife. The very heart of
reformism is here laid bare. Capitalism is all- powerful. The workers are powerless
against it. The workers must only hope to get what capitalism permits them through the
legal forms capitalism permits. Let us cling to what capitalism may grant us through the
forms of "democracy" (which were in fact only won by violent struggle) and
"hope to God" that, if we are docile, capitalism may not strike us further. Such
is the voice of the beaten, trembling slave, which expresses itself as the philosophy of
reformism. Does, then, the advance of Fascism mean the end of all things, that there is no
hope for the working-class movement, that there is no hope for the victory of socialism?
On the contrary. The poet, William Morris, in his imaginative picture already quoted of
the path of the socialist revolution in England (in the chapter "How the Change
Came," of News from Nowhere), describes how the Government proclaimed martial law and
appointed a well-known general who with modern artillery carried through a terrible
massacre of thousands of unarmed workers. The following dialogue then ensues between the
narrator and his informant, old Hammond: I wondered that he should have got so elated
about a mere massacre, and I said: "How fearful! And I suppose that this massacre put
an end to the whole revolution for that time?" "No, no," cried old Hammond,
"it began it.... That massacre began the civil war." "It began the civil
war." It destroyed the myths and illusions of legality and passive slavery, and laid
bare the civil war which, once began, could only finally end with the victory of the

302 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

masses. And that above all is the significance of Fascism. The old poet is a hundred
times right against the trembling modern reformists, who solemnly declare that modern
artillery and technique have made revolution impossible. Once the myths and illusions of
legality and pacifism have fallen, once the united mass of the workers enter into the
struggle, with the scales fallen from their eyes, there is no question of the ultimate
outcome. The exploiters know this well; hence their anxiety to build up the final rampart
of a national-fascist ideology of deception in the masses, alongside the direct violence
and coercion; and hence also the importance, on the workers' side, of carrying through the
ideological-political fight of exposure against Fascism alongside the direct preparation
of the mass struggle and final armed struggle. The example of Austria has shown how much
even a courageous minority of the workers, shackled and held back at every point by their
reformist leaders, when all the previous favourable opportunities had been squandered and
the enemy had been allowed to entrench himself over the whole field before the struggle
began, when the great part of the mass organisations of the workers were directly held
back from the struggle by their chiefs, could nevertheless accomplish to shake and bring
to a critical position the whole Fascist regime and awaken an answering spirit of struggle
throughout the whole world. The bands of hundreds of Schutzbundler who fought their way to
freedom across the frontier, are reported to have cried out as they reached the other
side: "Long live the Soviet Union!" and some "Long live the Communist
International!" Their lesson was learned. How much more will the final outcome of the
struggle be certain, when the whole working class will fight as a united force under
revolutionary leadership, when Fascism will be weakened and disorganised by its own
internal contradictions and by the fiasco of its regime and of its promises, and when
disillusionment and discontent and rising sympathy with their fighting working-class
brothers will spread through the lower Fascist ranks. Tsarism also fell despite all its
machinery of repression. Far more certainly and rapidly will the card- castles of the
modern Fascist dictatorships fall, when the time comes. The laying bare of the civil war
at the root of class-society, the explosion of all the illusions of peace and
legality-that is, above

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all, the historical role of Fascism. Fascism attempts to organise society on the basis
of permanent civil war, no longer merely with the old state forces, police and military,
of repression, but with permanent special armed legions of class-war to hold down the
workers. That fact is the most complete expression of the final bankruptcy of capitalism
and of the certainty of its collapse. The eyes of all are being opened to the realities of
class society and to the real character of the war confronting the working class. The
necessity of the workers' dictatorship as the sole means to crush the counter-revolution
is becoming understood. The crisis within the post-war Second International since Fascism
in Germany is only the expression of this process. As we enter more and more directly into
a period of revolutionary conditions, when the working-class movement can only be carried
forward by revolutionary methods and under illegal conditions or go under, the
will-o'-the-wisp lights of so-called "democratic socialism," that is, of
"socialism by permission of the bourgeoisie," inevitably go into eclipse and
leave the workers in the bog; only the clear light of revolutionary socialism burns
stronger than ever and shows the path forward. The issue becomes more and more clearly no
longer even in appearance a question of two tendencies, of two paths for the working-class
struggle; in the sight of all, the Communist International alone leads the working-class
struggle. In this situation even the Second International is compelled hypocritically to
recognise the necessity of "revolutionary" methods and the "error" of
its past policies. German Social Democracy in its latest Executive Manifesto of January
1934, proclaims the "error" of its path in 1918: The political transformation of
1918 ended up in a counter- revolutionary development. . . . The Social Democratic Party .
. . took over control of the State without opposition, sharing it as a matter of course
with the bourgeois parties, the old bureaucracy and even with the reorganised military
forces. That it should have taken over the old machinery of government virtually unchanged
was the great historical error committed by a German Labour Movement which had lost its
sense of direction during the war. ("The Battle of Revolutionary Socialism and its
Objective": Manifesto of the Executive of the German Social Democratic Party,
published in the Karlsbad Neuer Vorwarts, January 28, 1934.)

304 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"The great historical error." Fifteen years ago the centre of controversy of
the Second and Third Internationals, expressed in the controversy of Kautsky and Lenin,
turned precisely on this point, when Lenin, with Marx, declared that it was necessary for
the workers' revolution, not to take over, but to smash the existing capitalist state
machine and establish its own dictatorship instead, and the Second International denied
this. Now fifteen years too late, after the harm is done, after the German working class
is reduced to the uttermost limit of subjection by their methods, the Second International
blandly proclaims that its policy was an "error"-and then proceeds again in fact
to recommend the path of bourgeois democracy, "the new Organisation of the State on
the basis of freedom by the convening of a National Assembly elected by universal, equal,
direct and secret suffrage." Once again, despite all the attempts to make a show of a
great "change of heart," this is in reality the old Weimar path. But the German
workers have had their experience of the Weimar path and its outcome and have no intention
to repeat it. Similarly, the Second International in its Paris Resolution of August 1933,
on "The Strategy and Tactics of the International Labour Movement during the Period
of Fascist Reaction," admits the necessity of "revolutionary struggle"
after Fascism: Where the bourgeoisie has renounced democracy in order to throw itself into
the arms of Fascism and has deprived the working class of the democratic means of
struggle, the only means of emancipation left is that of the revolutionary struggle. . . .
In the countries in which Fascism has prevailed, the dictatorship can only be overthrown
by a revolution of the people. When they have gained their victory over Fascism, the
revolutionary forces will not confine themselves to breaking its power; they will destroy
the great capitalist and landowning forces which are its economic foundation. By this
declaration the whole line of the 1918 Revolution, of Weimar democracy, is implicitly
condemned. In the controversy of those days between Kautsky and Lenin, between the line
that the revolutionary working class in the moment of victorious overthrow of the old
regime must confine itself to setting up "pure" democracy and then await a
majority in the Constituent Assembly or Parliament before proceeding further, and the line
that the revolutionary working class in

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the moment of victory must at once use its power, without waiting for parliamentary
majorities, to overthrow capitalism, the Second International is now compelled, fifteen
years late, in a half -hidden unclear fashion, to admit that Lenin was right. The
revolutionary working class, it is now declared, in the moment of overthrow of the old
regime must at once, without waiting for Constituent Assemblies or parliamentary
majorities, proceed to "destroy the great capitalist and landowning forces."
Excellent. If this were seriously meant, it would mean the workers' dictatorship. But in
fact this phrasethrown in as a sop because in relation to Germany to-day it would be
impossible openly to advocate the return to the completely exposed Weimar democracy-is
used as a fine-sounding phrase without any attempt to face what it practically involves,
and is made completely meaningless by the rest of the resolution. Further-notable
precaution-it is to be applied only to countries where Fascism has already conquered.
What, therefore, does this line mean in practice? First, the working class must let itself
be bull-dozed by Democracy, paralysed and divided by reformism, smashed and butchered by
Fascism. Then, when their forces have been thus heavily broken up and weakened, when
Fascism has completely organised and established without resistance its apparatus of armed
pretorian guards over the disarmed workers, then the workers are graciously permitted by
the Second International to carry through the socialist revolution (though if there were
the slightest signs appearing of their succeeding in this, these gentlemen, as the
Karlsbad Manifesto of German Social Democracy has made clear, would be the first to hurry
forward to wave again the banner of "pure democracy" and thus endeavour again to
save the bourgeoisie as in 1918). But where "democracy" still exists, the
workers must still tread the fatal path of "pure democracy," abstaining from any
revolutionary initiative, until Fascism has conquered them. Such are the final confusions
and contortions of the leadership of the Second International in the present epoch. It is
abundantly clear that Social Democracy by this line is in fact only disorganising the
working-class fight against Fascism, and thus in practice still fulfils its role, also in
the countries of open Fascist dictatorship, of the support of the bourgeoisie in the
working class. Against this line the revolutionary working class line of

306 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

communism declares: The workers' dictatorship is the only alternative to the capitalist
dictatorship, which at present is increasingly passing from the older
"democratic" to Fascist forms. The workers' dictatorship is the only guarantee
against the victory of Fascism, against the victory of the capitalist counter-revolution
and the unlimited subjection of the working class. The path of bourgeois democracy ends in
Fascism. The battle for the workers' dictatorship must be fought, not merely after
Fascism, but before Fascism, as the sole means to prevent Fascism. Social Democracy says:
First Fascism, then Revolution. But Communism says: Revolution before Fascism, and
preventing Fascism. Fascism is not inevitable. Fascism only becomes inevitable if the
working class follows the line of reformism, of trust in the capitalist state, of refusal
of the united front, and thus lets itself be struck down by the class enemy. But if the
working class follows the line of the united front, of the rising mass struggle, of the
building of its Communist Party and fighting mass Organisation to the final victory of the
revolution and establishment of the workers' dictatorship, then the working class can
defeat and crush Fascism and pass straight to the socialist order with no costly and
shameful Fascist interlude. This is the path to defeat Fascism. Equally in those countries
where the Fascist dictatorship has won the temporary upper hand, the only path forward and
object of the workers' struggle requires to be, no longer the restoration of the old
illusory "democracy" which only prepared the way for Fascism, but the workers'
dictatorship and the establishment of the Soviet regime. The German workingClass
revolution is not defeated, despite the temporary retreat of 1933 made inevitable by the
whole role of Social Democracy. On the contrary, Germany is nearer to the final victory of
the proletarian revolution than any country in the capitalist world. The fact that the
German workers are going through the extremest hell of Fascism is the reflection of the
fact, not that their movement is more backward, but that it is relatively more advanced
and closer to the revolution. The liberals and reformists see only the surface
completeness of the Fascist victory. They can never understand the dialectical process.
They see the immediate victory of Fascism. But they do not see the negative side. They do
not see the disintegration of all capitalist stability that that represents. They do

THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM 307

not see that the very ferocity of the capitalist attack is the measure of the growing
revolutionary advance. They do not see the significance of the crushing exposure of the
line of reformism and laying bare of the real battle. They do not see that the Communist
Party of Germany-with unbroken ranks and organisation, and over one hundred thousand
members active under the most extreme terror, a record without parallel in working-class
history-is in reality stronger than it has ever been, closer to the winning of the
unquestioned leadership of the majority of the working class, closer to the victory of the
proletarian revolution. The mournful pessimists and fainthearts who see a long period of
Fascist dictatorship and unshaken reaction in front do not understand the whole character
of the present period of the destruction of capitalist stability, a period in which rapid
changes throughout the world and gigantic revolutionary struggles are before us. The
bourgeoisie dream through Fascism to exterminate Marxism, that is, to exterminate the
independent workingclass movement and the fight for Socialism. The attempt is not a new
one. A hundred years ago "all the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy
alliance to exorcise the spectre of Communism: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot,
French Radicals and German police-spies." The collapse of 1848 was heralded as the
collapse of Socialism. In the decade after the Commune, on the basis of thirty thousand
corpses, Thiers boasted that "we have heard the last of Socialism." In the
following decade Bismarck set himself to stamp out Marxism in Germany with all the power
of the most highly organised Prussian police and bureaucratic system, and after twelve
years had to recognise that he had met his master. Down the long gallery of the years the
ghosts of the past, Cavaignac and Gallifet, Thiers and Bismarck, Pobiedonostsev and
Stolypin, Kornilov and Kolchak, the hangmen and butchers and jailers of bourgeois rule,
may welcome with a spectral sneer the new accessions to their ranks, Hitler and Goering
and Goebbels, taking their place alongside Horthy and Tsankov and Dyer and Chiang
Kai-shek. But the older attempts were against a still early and newly rising movement.
To-day the attempt is against a powerful and developed movement on the eve of power. That
it will fail

308 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

like every previous attempt and end in ignominious collapse requires no demonstration.
whatever, in whatever shape, and under whatever conditions the class struggle obtains any
consistency, it is but natural that members of our Association should stand in the
foreground. The soil out of which it grows is modern society itself. It cannot be stamped
out by any amount of carnage. To stamp it out, the Government would have to stamp out the
despotism of capital over labour-the condition of their own parasitical existence. (Marx,
Civil War in France.)

What is in question now is not the inevitable future collapse of Fascism. What matters
now is the speed with which the international working class can gather its forces and
drive back this offensive, before it has developed further, before it has developed to the
point of world war and the direct attack on the Soviet Union, can prevent the enormous
losses and sacrifices which a prolongation of this struggle will mean, and can rapidly
transform the present situation into the revolutionary offensive. The issues which are
confronting the world at the present moment are heavy issues. Fascism in Germany lays bare
to all where capitalist civilisation is inevitably developing, if the workers' revolution
is delayed. Germany is not a backward country. Germany is the most advanced, highly
organised capitalist country in the world, the last word, which shows to other countries
the picture of their future development. What is that picture of the future of capitalism
thus revealed? Barbarism and the return of the Dark Ages; the systematic destruction of
all science and culture; the enthronement of Catholic Christian, and even pre-Christian,
obscurantism, racial persecution and torture systems; the return to a system of isolated,
self-sufficient warring communities. This is the final working out of the most advanced
capitalism, with the Pope conferring his blessing upon it and decorating the murderer
Goering with his Gold Medal of the Holy Year. Marx and Engels long ago pointed out the
inevitable working out of capitalism in barbarism and decay, if the working-class
revolution should fail to conquer in time. Stage by stage, through imperialism and its
world orgies of brutality and destruction, through the slaughter of the world war, and
to-day through Fascism, we are tasting the first beginnings of this alternative.

THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM 309

It is time to end this chapter of human history, before we have to tread this path
still further, and to open the new one throughout the world which has already begun over
one-sixth of the world. Only the working-class revolution can save humanity, can carry
humanity forward, can organise the enormous powers of production that lie ready to hand.
The working-class movement in the first period after the war was not yet ready outside
Russia for its world historic task. The organised working-class movement was still soaked
with reformist and pacifist illusions, with opportunism and corruption in its upper
strata. Fascism is not only the punishment of history for this weakness; Fascism is the
weapon of history for purging and burning out this weakness. In the fires of Fascist
!error and of the fight against Fascism the revolutionary working class is drawing close
its ranks, steeled and hardened and clear-seeing, for the final struggle; and the
revolutionary working class, thus steeled and strengthened, will rise to the height of its
task, and win and save the world. Whatever the black hells of suffering and destruction
that have still to be passed through, we face the future with the certainty and confidence
of approaching power, with contempt for the barbarous antics of the doomed and decaying
parasiteclass enemy and its final misshapen progeny of Fascism, with singing hearts and
glowing confidence in the future. "The last fight let us face. The Internationale
unites the human race."